Methodological issues of open research data: Analysis of the datasets from SciELO included in Figshare

Abstract

Open research data represent an opportunity to share scientific knowledge and to provide new perspectives for validation and dissemination of scientific results. Effective re-use of these data implies to know both the research methods applied to obtain them and the measures of usage and citation that are sistematically gathered. Based on the whole catalogue of open research data (348 datasets) from SciELO journals available in Figshare, this study aims to explore their research methods and the types of data according to data collection techniques and subject categories. It also analyses usage and bibliometric indicators, file formats and dataset licensing. Results show that quantitative data are more frequent than qualitative data. The most usual data were those obtained by observation techniques, followed by experimental and derived data. This figures varied according to the different scientific areas, but usage indicators came out not to be significant for the whole set of data files.