Investigation of Sharing and Reuse of Research Data among Researchers

Purpose: Sharing research data leads to the reusing that data. The purpose   is to describe the status of sharing and reusing research data amongst researchers. This examines the attitude, experience and barriers in reusing research data. Methodology: Applied quantitative survey method was used. Population  was 154 participants all faculty members of Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University. Instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire which face and content validity was approved by experts. Reliability of the questionnaire was determined via Cronbach's alpha and an appropriate value of 0.774 was gained. Descriptive statistics were used by SPSS software. Findings: Attitude of researchers towards the reusing research data with an average of 3.29 was in a relatively favorable situation. The experience of reusing research data with an average of 2.22 was not at the desired level. The average scores of legal, individual and organizational barriers were 3.45, 3.18 and 3.15, respectively. Female researchers had not as much of data sharing experience than men. The average of attitude and experience in sharing and reusing research data for agricultural researchers was significantly lower than other groups. The average of attitude for older researchers was somewhat more than that of other groups. Conclusion: Despite the relatively favorable attitude of researchers to reuse research data, it was not at the desired level in terms of experience. Legal, individual and organizational barriers were effective barriers in research data reuse.