4.1 Evidence that data sharing increases citation impact

Demands for Data Management Plans are now common from both national, international and private research funders and agencies, and as infrastructures and policies are arising aiming at both archiving, structuring and distributing research data resulting from scholarly ventures within practically all fields of science. This is probably both a result of increased focus on issues related to Responsible Conduct of Research, as well as of the Open Science agenda. Also, as individual researchers and research are increasingly being evaluated and funded according to quantitative measures, e.g. bibliometrics and similar, it is evermore relevant to ask whether a Citation Advantage related to the activity of linking exists, i.e. whether sharing data leads to increased impact with respect to citations, similar to the postulated Citation Advantage related to Open Access.

In this paper we present evidence of the existence of a Citation Advantage related to linking to data, using the field of astronomy as a case. Using simple measures based on publication and citation data from NASA’s Astrophysics Data System, I find that the Citation Advantage presently amounts to certain peer reviewed research articles with links to research data receiving on the average significantly more citations per paper per year, than the corresponding research articles without links to data. The results presented here is a further development of a previously unpublished work (Dorch 2012, working paper). Additionally, similar studies by other authors show a cumulative effect after several years amounting to up to 20%. Hence, a Data Sharing Citation Advantage seems inevitable, lending further argument to the cause of Open Science as well as indications as to how libraries may develop research support services related to improving conditions for Open Science.