Internet researchers’ data sharing behaviors. An integration of data reuse experience, attitudinal beliefs, social norms, and resource factors

Published date12 February 2018
Pages124-142
Date12 February 2018
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-10-2016-0313
AuthorYoungseek Kim,Seungahn Nah
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management
Internet researchersdata
sharing behaviors
An integration of data reuse experience,
attitudinal beliefs, social norms, and
resource factors
Youngseek Kim
School of Information Science, University of Kentucky, Lexington,
Kentucky, USA, and
Seungahn Nah
School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon, Eugene,
Oregon, USA
Abstract
Purpose The purposeof this paper is to examine how data reuseexperience, attitudinalbeliefs, social norms,
and resource factors influence internetresearchers to share data with other researchers outside their teams.
Design/methodology/approach An online survey was conducted to examine the extent to which data
reuse experience, attitudinal beliefs, social norms, and resource factors predicted internet researchers
data sharing intentions and behaviors. The theorized model was tested using a structural equation modeling
technique to analyze a total of 201 survey responses from the Association of Internet Researchersmailing list.
Findings Results show that data reuse experience significantly influenced participantsperception of
benefit from data sharing and participantsnorm of data sharing. Belief structures regarding data sharing,
including perceived career benefit and risk, and perceived effort, had significant associations with attitude
toward data sharing, leading internet researchers to have greater data sharing intentions and behavior.
The results also reveal that researchersnorms for data sharing had a direct effect on data sharing intention.
Furthermore, the results indicate that, while the perceived availability of data repository did not yield a
positive impact on data sharing intention, it has a significant, direct, positive impact on researchersdata
sharing behaviors.
Research limitations/implications This study validated its novel theorized model based on the theory
of planned behavior (TPB). The study showed a holistic picture of how different data sharing factors,
including data reuse experience, attitudinal beliefs, social norms, and data repositories, influence internet
researchersdata sharing intentions and behaviors.
Practical implications Data reuse experience, attitude toward and norm of data sharing, and the
availability of data repository had either direct or indirect influence on internet researchersdata sharing
behaviors. Thus, professional associations, funding agencies, and academic institutions alikeshould promote
academic cultures that value data sharing in order to create a virtuous cycle of reciprocity and encourage
researchers to have positive attitudes toward/norms of data sharing; these cultures should be strengthened
by the strong support of data repositories.
Originality/value In line with prior scholarship concerning scientific data sharing, this study of internet
researchers offers a map of scientific data sharing intentions and behaviors by examining the impacts of data
reuse experience, attitudinal beliefs, social norms, and data repositories together.
Keywords Data repository, Theory of planned behaviour, Data sharing intention, internet researchers,
Norm of data sharing
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Data sharing is essential for continued scholarly communication in modern scientific
research activities. Researchers have used journal articles, conference papers, and
pre-publication archives as their main methods of scholarly communication; however, data
themselves are a key component of scholarly communication. A burgeoning body of
scholarship from multiple perspectives over the past few decades has shed light on why
Online Information Review
Vol. 42 No. 1, 2018
pp. 124-142
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-10-2016-0313
Received 28 October 2016
Revised 7 July 2017
Accepted 7 August 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
124
OIR
42,1
researchers share data. Institutions and funding agencies alike impose data sharing
requirements to promote academic transparency (NIH, 2007; NSF, 2008). In many cases,
academic journals require authors to share data from their peer-reviewed articles upon
request or to deposit data into repositories (Kim and Stanton, 2016; Piwowar and
Chapman, 2008). Data sharing is also a discretionary activity among individual researchers
(Kim and Stanton, 2012). Indeed, data sharing practices vary widely across disciplines in
various contexts (Anagnostou et al., 2013; Tenopir et al., 2011).
Although previous studies examine diverse factors influencing scientistsdata sharing
behaviors, research has left many questions unanswered about scientistsdata sharing
behaviors at the individual level. Data sharing among researchers at the individual level is
much more complex than behaviors bounded by organizational guidelines and institutional
policies. Beyond organizational and institutional factors, research has yet to extensively
examine which factors motivate or hinder individual researchers with regards to sharing
data with other researchers. One of the questions that is still unanswered is how scientists
prior experience in data reuse affect their data sharing behaviors. We consider in particular
how prior data reuse experience influence internet researchersattitudinal beliefs and
norms, which eventually lead to their data sharing intentions and actual behaviors.
In examining data sharing, a growing body of scholarship has applied the theory of
planned behavior (TPB) to examine why researchers practice making data available to other
researchers (Kim and Adler, 2015; Kim and Zhang, 2015). This line of inquiry underscores
psychological factors influencing data sharing intention and behavior at the individual
level whether researchers perceive data sharing as an academic norm and part of a reward
system; whether researchers have a positive attitude toward data sharing and shared
perception regarding the availability of technological support and data repositories. These
psychological attributes and social psychological orientations come into play in determining
whether and why researchers practice making data collected and/or used for their scholarly
endeavors available to other researchers.
This study also relies on the TPB to develop a theoretical model concerning data sharing
behavior among internet researchers. Over the past two decades, the internet in general and
social media in particular have paved new conduits by which researchers can gather vast
amounts of data and share them with other investigators. While numerous professional
associations have organized divisions and interest groups to encourage internet research,
researchers have also organized professional associations specialized in internet studies.
For instance, researchers founded the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) in 1999 to
promote international, transdisciplinary scholarly research to advance internet studies.
In the vein of this research, this study aims to reveal the psychological mechanisms that
motivate internet researchers to share their data. This study in particular shows how prior
data reuse experience affects internet researchersdata sharing behaviors mediated by their
attitudinal beliefs and norms of data sharing.
Literature review
Data sharing in this research is defined as the extent to which researchers provide their own
data of published articleswith other researchers by uploading data sets in data repositories
and sharing data sets upon request. Researchers are more willing to share data from published
articles rather than share their data before publications (Huang et al., 2012; Kim and
Stanton, 2012). A good number of prior studies in scientific data sharing have examined
diverse factors influencing researchersdata sharing behaviors. Those factors can be
categorized into three groups including individual motivations, institutional influences, and
resource factors. With regards to researchersmotivations, scholars reported that researchers
are more likelyto share their data when theyexpect potential benefits of data sharingsuch as
academic rewards and recognitions (Kim and Stanton, 2016; Kim and Zhang, 2015).
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Internet
researchers
data sharing
behaviors

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