IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0092590.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring the Value of Research Data: A Citation Analysis of Oceanographic Data Sets

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher W Belter

Abstract

Evaluation of scientific research is becoming increasingly reliant on publication-based bibliometric indicators, which may result in the devaluation of other scientific activities - such as data curation – that do not necessarily result in the production of scientific publications. This issue may undermine the movement to openly share and cite data sets in scientific publications because researchers are unlikely to devote the effort necessary to curate their research data if they are unlikely to receive credit for doing so. This analysis attempts to demonstrate the bibliometric impact of properly curated and openly accessible data sets by attempting to generate citation counts for three data sets archived at the National Oceanographic Data Center. My findings suggest that all three data sets are highly cited, with estimated citation counts in most cases higher than 99% of all the journal articles published in Oceanography during the same years. I also find that methods of citing and referring to these data sets in scientific publications are highly inconsistent, despite the fact that a formal citation format is suggested for each data set. These findings have important implications for developing a data citation format, encouraging researchers to properly curate their research data, and evaluating the bibliometric impact of individuals and institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher W Belter, 2014. "Measuring the Value of Research Data: A Citation Analysis of Oceanographic Data Sets," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-9, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0092590
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092590
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0092590
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0092590&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0092590?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0092590. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.