You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Research methods and reporting
Sharing study materials in health and medical research
  1. Nicholas J DeVito1,
  2. Caroline Morton1,
  3. Aidan Gregory Cashin2,3,
  4. Georgia C Richards4,
  5. Hopin Lee5,6
  1. 1 Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK
  2. 2 School of Health Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  3. 3 Centre for Pain IMPACT, Neuroscience Research Australia, Randwick, New South Wales, Australia
  4. 4 Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK
  5. 5 Centre for Statistics in Medicine & Rehabilitation Research in Oxford, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS), University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK
  6. 6 School of Medicine and Public Health, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Nicholas J DeVito, Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK; nicholas.devito{at}phc.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

Making study materials available allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the scientific literature. Sharing can take many forms and include a wide variety of outputs including code and data. Biomedical research can benefit from increased transparency but faces unique challenges for sharing, for instance, confidentiality concerns around participants’ medical data. Both general and specialised repositories exist to aid in sharing most study materials. Sharing may also require skills and resources to ensure that it is done safely and effectively. Educating researchers on how to best share their materials, and properly rewarding these practices, requires action from a variety of stakeholders including journals, funders and research institutions.

  • ethics
  • methods
  • policy

Data availability statement

Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjebm-2022-111987

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @AidanCashin, @Richards_G_C

    • Contributors NJD wrote the first draft of the piece. All authors contributed to the conceptualisation of the manuscript and critically reviewed and provided feedback on its content. NJD is guarantor.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests GCR was financially supported by the NHS, National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), School for Primary Care Research (SPCR), the Naji Foundation and the Rotary Foundation to study for a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) at the University of Oxford (2017–2020), but no longer has interests to declare. GCR is an Associate Editor of BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.