I’ve always been a big fan of data sharing, mostly for selfish reasons. I like to see interesting data sets and use them as teaching examples and on my website. There are unselfish reasons for sharing data: such as the increase in research transparency and the ability to pursue new avenues of research. But if we want to see more progress in sharing data, there need to be some improvements in public data archives, In particular, there needs to be more flexibility in data embargoes, better communication between the original data set owners and those who would like to re-use their data, better understanding of the ethics of data re-use, and more rewards for those who take the time and trouble to share their data.
Roche DG, Lanfear R, Binning SA, et al. Troubleshooting Public Data Archiving: Suggestions to Increase Participation. PLoS Biol. 2014;12(1):e1001779. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001779. Available at: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001779
