USDAS

Once deposited and available the data become more visible and it is ready for further exploitation. Publishing and sharing the data increases the visibility of the researchers among colleagues in the field and thus the chance of being cited is increased. The data itself can also be cited in research articles and other publications. Data sharing thus provides credit to the researcher as a research output in its own right.

The chance for involvement in collaborative projects can rise because data sharing is a way for the researcher to present his or her work to the community so other researchers can get interested in their work and offer new ideas for collaborations. Data sharing promotes innovation and potential new data uses.

Science is a collaborative endeavor by nature and every dataset is a building block in the advancement of knowledge. One of the important characteristics of science is a constant validation and improvement of previous results. Sharing data encourages scientific enquiry and debate. It enables scrutiny of research findings and contributes to the improvement and validation of research methods.

When teaching students about social sciences research methods, enabling them to use real datasets can be much more engaging than just verbally explaining abstract statistical concepts. Also, students can use datasets available through data archives to support their arguments in written assignments in any area of the study. Data sharing provides great resources for education and training.

From the point of view of the research funders it is important to spend money efficiently and rationally. By supporting and promoting secondary analyses they are reducing the cost of duplicating data collection.