Factors influencing data sharing practices, perceptions and motivations for improved accessibility of agricultural research data in Tanzania

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Date

2023

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

HSOA Journal of Environmental Science Current Research

Abstract

Accurate and reliable information on the data sharing practices and what motivates researchers to share their data is important in making data accessible for use/reuse. The purpose of this paper is to report a study that investigated factors influencing data-sharing practices, perceptions, and motivations for enhanced accessibility of agricultural research data among agricultural researchers in Tan- zania. This research employed a cross-sectional survey method to examine data-sharing practices in agricultural research institutions and examined factors motivating researchers in their data-sharing. The sample size included 227 while from this sample size, some 204 respondents participated in the study. The findings have revealed that more than 80% of the researchers shared their data with proj- ect funders, research institutions, and with departmental colleagues. The findings also indicate that many researchers (60%) shared their data with the public through media, institutional libraries, and online publications. The findings reveal that both individual and institution- al factors influence researchers in data sharing. However, some of the factors were statistically significant at 5%; these are perceived community benefit, perceived ability to share, data sharing norms, perceived risk, and funding agency policies. In addition, the findings indicate that agricultural researchers face several challenges in their data sharing, including a lack of data sharing policy that could en- hance data sharing in research institutions. This study has practical implications for promoting more reliable, and beneficial data sharing in the agricultural scientific community. The findings of this research can facilitate the establishment of a data-sharing policy and data repositories that could improve easy data sharing. The present study has significant theoretical contributions: the TPB model has been used in this study to explain the factors motivating researchers in their data-sharing behavior.

Description

Review Article

Keywords

Agricultural Research, Agriculture Research Data, Data Sharing, Research Data

Citation

Mwinami NV, et al., J Environ Sci Curr Res 2023, 6: 045 DOI: 10.24966/ESCR-5020/100045