Information Scientists’ Motivations for Research Data Sharing and Reuse

Abstract What are the motivations and sought gratifications leading information science researchers to share and to reuse research data? Research data are both datasets and supplementary materials such as interview guides or questionnaires. The theoretical backgrounds of this study are the Lasswell Formula of Communication, the Uses and Gratifications Theory, and the Self-determination Theory, which formed the basis for the construction of an interview guide and the interpretation of the interview transcripts. We performed 11 in-depth interviews with German information scientists, all with experiences with data. The results demonstrate that research data sharing is not a rare practice among information scientists. Due to problems with different information horizons of the sharing and the reusing researchers, the reusing of data sets is much rarer than the reuse of supplementary materials.