Sharing data and materials

Making the outputs of your study more open means the data and materials you have gathered during your research can be used, reused, and redistributed by anyone. Data refers to the information or facts collected, observed, or generated during the course of a study or investigation. For example, in the quantitative chocolate chip cookie example from Week 1, the chocolate chip ranking would be the data.

Materials refers to any materials used in a research study. These can include (but are not limited to) the code used to run any statistical analyses, protocols outlining exactly what was done in the study, auditory and visual stimulus files shown to participants, questionnaires, documents used to obtain consent from participants, and videos of the study being run.

There are many benefits to sharing data and materials. One benefit is financial – the more products that are shared from any individual study, the more efficient the use of the funding used to conduct the study. Sharing data also allows others to check the data for quality and accuracy, reproduce the analyses reported in a research paper, and expand on the analyses through running alternative analyses. In addition, most datasets have uses beyond what is reported in a paper, including secondary data analysis that addresses different questions altogether. Sharing data may also be required by the project funder or the journal in which the article is published (see Top Factor for a list of journal requirements). Sharing materials has similar benefits to sharing data – readers can check what was done in the study, re-run the same study, or change the materials to run a slightly different study.