The National Medical Research Council (NMRC) of the Ministry of Health in Singapore requires research data sharing for projects with funding of $250,000 and above from November 2015 onwards.
In 2016, the Social Science Research Thematic Grant call by Ministry of Education (Singapore) included the following open data sharing requirement: "8.1 Subject to restrictions related to research ethics, confidentiality and intellectual property, all data generated from research funded by the Thematic Grant should be made available to user communities at the earliest feasible opportunity. This would generally be no later than the release through publication of the study’s main findings, or in line with established best practices in the respective fields."
The NTU Research Data Policy (launched on 14 Apr 2016) requires open access research data sharing unless there is any agreement with external parties that prevents it.
Increasingly, funding agencies around the world are requiring research data to be made openly available. For example, Research Councils UK advocates that “Publicly funded research data are a public good, produced in the public interest, which should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible in a timely and responsible manner.”
Research data should be "as open as possible and as closed as necessary".
Adopting FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles makes research data more discoverable and reusable, thereby enhancing the efficiency and value of the research system, supporting reproducibility, and enabling new discoveries.
The best way to make your data FAIR is to make use of a data repository that is FAIR-aligned and complies with international data repository standards such as CoreTrustSeal (CTS). DR-NTU (Data) is CTS certified in 2022. Use the NTU DMP (Data Management Plan) template to plan for FAIR data.
How FAIR is your data? Check out these self-assessment tools:
Data Sharing
(Source: UK Data Service)
Does it help my citation count?
There is no lack of literature that tells us about the positive correlation between publicly available research data and increased literature impact. For example, based on a study done on 85 cancer microarray clinical trial publications, publicly available data was significantly associated with a 69% increase in citations, independently of journal impact factor, date of publication, and author country of origin using linear regression (Piwowar, Day & Fridsma, 2007). In another study, it was found that data made available in a public repository received 9% more citations than similar studies for which the data was not made available (Piwowar & Vision, 2013).
Further readings:
There are some legitimate reasons for not sharing your data publicly:
Data Sharing and Management Snafu in 3 Short Acts
A data management horror story by Karen Hanson, Alisa Surkis and Karen Yacobucci. This is what shouldn't happen when a researcher makes a data sharing request! Topics include storage, documentation, and file formats.
You are expected to comply with University policies and guidelines namely, Appropriate Use of Information Resources Policy, IT Usage Policy and Social Media Policy. Users will be personally liable for any infringement of Copyright and Licensing laws. Unless otherwise stated, all guide content is licensed by CC BY-NC 4.0.