Dataset relating the Social activity of Open Research Data on ResearchGate

The potential of Open Research Data (ORD) within the context of open science and digital scholarship can be frustrated if data remains unused. Although current research has investigated the way ORD is being published,  researchers’ behaviour of ORD publishing and sharing on academic social networks (ASN) remains insufficiently explored. The research to which this dataset is connected aims to illustrate some parameters of social activity around self-archived ORDs on ResearchGate. The study analyses whether the ORDs publication leads to social activity (reads and citations) around the ORDs and their linked published articles, including eventual associations between the social activity and the researchers’ profile (scientific domain, gender, region, professional position, reputation) as well as the quality of the ORD published.

The current dataset is composed by:

A- The .csv file, extracted as a random sample of 752 ORD items from ResearchGate. The dataset has been polished and anonymized. The variables relating the researchers' profiles and citations to the ORD lined research were got from the researchers' profiles and published research. However, for the purpose of anonymisation, these variables have been coded and the original information removed.

B- The codebook explaining the variables and metrics contained in the file (A)

C- The R script. This script contains a number of explorations not reported in the final paper. The quantitative techniques applied include descriptive statistics, logistic regression and K-means cluster analysis.

D- Five tables, three figures and two annexes (Logistic Regression I and II) created over the basis of the dataset (A)

The results have been interpreted in terms of three main aspects.

• Firstly, there is still an underdeveloped social activity around self-archived ORD in ResearchGate (operationalized as reads and citations) overall and in spite of the published ORDs quality.
• Secondly, it was found an uncovering of the relevance of the moderating effects over ORD, which spots traditional dynamics within the “innovative” practice of engaging with data practices.
• Thirdly, a rather similar situation of ResearchGate as ASN with regard to other data platforms and repositories in terms of social activity around ORD was detected.

The potential of Open Research Data (ORD) within the context of open science and digital scholarship can be frustrated if data remains unused.