research data practices in veterinary medicine: a case study

OBJECTIVE: To determine trends in research data output, reuse, and sharing of the college of veterinary medicine faculty members at a large academic research institution. METHODS: This bibliographic study was conducted by examining original research articles for indication of the types of data produced, as well as evidence that the authors reused data or made provision for sharing their own data. Findings were recorded in the categories of research type, data type, data reuse, data sharing, author collaboration, and grants/funding and were analyzed to determine trends. RESULTS: A variety of different data types were encountered in this study, even within a single article, resulting primarily from clinical and laboratory animal studies. All of the articles resulted from author collaboration, both within the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as well as with researchers outside the institution. There was little indication that data was reused, except some instances where the authors acknowledged that data was obtained directly from a colleague. There was even less indication that the research data was shared, either as a supplementary file on the publisher’s website or by submission to a repository, except in the case of genetic data. CONCLUSIONS: Veterinary researchers are prolific producers and users of a wide variety of data. Despite the large amount of collaborative research occurring in veterinary medicine, this study provided little evidence that veterinary researchers are reusing or sharing their data, except in an informal manner. Wider adoption of data management plans may serve to improve researchers’ data management practices.