Wellcome Open Research 

Growing a culture of data sharing 

As data is essential to research and key to reproducibility, the Early Career Researcher Advisory Board (ECRAB) for Wellcome Open Research has launched a Data Sharing Campaign. We want to grow a culture of data sharing by raising awareness, sharing information and developing discipline specific resources on data sharing to help all researchers shift to open science practices. This site will be a hub for all the content. 

Easier said than done…

Open data – are you enthusiastic or apprehensive about openly sharing your data? Even for those who are willing to share their data, the journey can sometimes be arduous, with unexpected challenges and hurdles to overcome, so it’s not surprising that even the most tenacious might be put off.

We know it can sometimes be a struggle, and many are facing the same difficulties, which is why we’re here to lend a helping hand. We’ll be easing you into the process, educating and guiding you with useful advice and case studies, so that you can familiarise yourself with the requirements, but also enrich your research by making it open and accessible for other to reuse. Believe us, your efforts are worth it in the long run.

Share your data story

Do you have a data story? We interested to hear your experiences. So, share your tales with us via email info@wellcomeopenresearch.org or on Twitter, by using the Hashtag #ECROpenData and tag @WellcomeOpenRes. Sharing your data story with the community can help others to learn more about FAIR data, enabling us to progress to a culture of openness.
Data stories

“We are keen in the WOR ECRAB to promote and support good practice around open data and data sharing. There is fear and insecurity around what open data and data sharing might mean on an individual level. Data sharing might also seem like an arduous and thankless task to achieve at the end of a project when time is limited.

We are excited to be launching a data sharing campaign where we hope to address some of the key issues faced by ECRs. Openness is a key ingredient to progressive, reproducible and efficient science as well as a solid foundation on which to build a better and kinder research culture. It is our aim to help ECRs develop their own open data good practices, guided by the success of others, and to implement it at every stage of their research. It is our hope that our fellow ECRs will develop their own vision for open data and data sharing, which will shape the future of research for the better."

Updates from the ECRab

'Data sharing in the current crisis' - in this blog, the ECRab discuss how the pandemic is changing science, with more researchers choosing to share their work quickly and openly. Could the benefits of this approach convince communities to adopt it for good? In 'To share or not to share - Open Data and the journey that lies ahead' the ECRab outline their campaign plans and give a taste of things to come over the next year.
Read now

Case studies

To ‘share and share alike’ – why CellPhoneDB, a friendly open-source platform, is good for data sharing and collaborations. Roser Vento, Wellcome Sanger Institute, designed CellPhoneDB, and she explains what makes the database unique and why her team encourages fellow researchers to share their own cell interactions on the database.
Creating CellPhoneDB

Myth busting

Separating the facts from fiction - It is time to set the record straight on open data and data sharing. So, to set aside your concerns and find out the truths, read this helpful piece by Hollydawn Murray, Head Of Data and Software Publishing at F1000Research, where she debunks the myths surrounding open data and data sharing to bring you closer to realising the diversity, richness and quantity of data this approach provides.
Busting the myths

How to guides

Be FAIR, be Open - The aim of these quick guides is to serve as a handy go-to to help direct you when it comes to organising your data in a useful way, through formatting your data in spreadsheets; selecting an appropriate repository; and choosing a license.

Download your go-to guide to making your data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR)

Download your guide to Licenses 

Download your guide to Repositories 

Download your guide to Spreadsheets

Download your guide for Sharing Sensitive Data 

Guidance from the Early Career Researcher Advisory Board

Call for Data Notes

As the drive for transparent research progresses, the ECRAB invites you to be part of the greater good and submit a data note for publication on Wellcome Open Research. All the information you need around publishing a data note, including examples of published data notes on Wellcome Open Research, can be found on our data note landing page.
Making data sharing the norm!

Data in practice

Highlighting the research article by Tony Ly, ECRAB, et al., as it contains a wealth of high-quality data that is easily available through a web-based resource, allowing other researchers to mine the dataset. It therefore serves as a valuable reference for future studies investigating other aspects of the transformation process.
View now

Sharing ideas and data

Read this blog post by Muzlifah Haniffa, a Wellcome Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Newcastle University and Associate Faculty at Wellcome Sanger Institute, as she discusses the Human Cell Atlas (HCA), a global initiative that encourages collaborative working across disciplines and research groups in an effort to map every cell of the human body.
Working on a common goal

Presenting your Data Champions

There to advise, encourage and support you on best data practices. In this piece, data stewards from different institutions around the globe have kindly shared their knowledge and expertise. For those in need of inspiration and useful pointers, read through these pieces of advice on why and how to openly share your data, and this list of data collection tips and resources to help manage data collection.

"Do it - it can only benefit you. Not only will it highlight your collaborative spirit, it also acts as a sign to the scientific community that they are dealing with a trustworthy scientist who values rigour and quality over quantity."

Ralitsa Madsen, University College London 

The data sharing lifecycle

When you are new to data sharing, it is sometimes hard to know where to start. The ECRAB have put together a data sharing lifecycle which walks you through each stage of the process. Each step contains guidance, how to guides, or hints and tips.

All the material is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0), so you are free to share and adapt this material, but we ask that you credit Wellcome Open Research in any reuse.