FACILITATING DATA SHARING: A DESIGN APPROACH TO INCORPORATE CONTEXT INTO THE RESEARCH DATA REPOSITORY

Abstract

We asked whether the design of an Science Data Repository (SDR) can influence data sharing behaviour in small scientific collaborations. We hypothesised that an SDR can influence data-sharing behaviour when its design considers the context of data-sharing. We proposed an alternative approach to those documented in the literature, employing a combination of socio-technical empirical and analytical methods for context capturing, and choice architecture for context incorporation. To evaluate the approach we applied it to design features in a Scientific Data Repository for a population of small scientific collaborations within the Life Sciences.The application of this thesis' approach consisted of an exploratory case study, a review of factors associated with data sharing, the definition of design claims, and implementation of a set of design features. We collected data using interviews with members of the collaborations and designers of the SDR; as well as obtaining the data-logs from the collaborations' SDR. We evaluated the resulting design features using an asynchronous web experiment.We found that using the empirical approach to context capturing we are able to effectively identify factors associated with data sharing in the small scientific collaborations. Moreover, we identified a number of limitations on the application of the analytical approach to context capturing. Furthermore, we found that the Choice Architecture based procedure for context incorporation can define effective design features in Science Data Repositories.In this work, we show that we can facilitate data-sharing by incorporating context into the design of a Science Data Repository, and identified a set of restrictions to use our approach. The approach proposed in this thesis can be used by practitioners wishing to improve data sharing in an SDR. Contributions, such as the survey of factors associated with data sharing behaviour, can be used by researchers to understand the problems associated with data sharing in small scientific collaborations.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Carole Goble (Supervisor), John Brooke (Supervisor) & Caroline Jay (Supervisor)