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Data in Brief: Can a mega-journal for data be useful?

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  • Mike Thelwall

    (University of Wolverhampton)

Abstract

As part of the current move towards open science, there is increasing pressure for scientists to share their research data. In support of this, several journals only publish descriptions of data generated from research: data papers. It is not clear whether this service encourages data reuse, however. This article assesses the prevalence and impact of the largest such journal, Data in Brief, comparing it with 24 other general or specialist data journals. The results show that Data in Brief became the largest data journal in 2016 and that its papers attracted over five Mendeley readers each, within a year of publication, as well as a non-trivial amount of citations. Its papers have been cited for relevance or facts contained in them in addition to acknowledging the reuse of associated datasets in about 1% of cases. Some papers describe electronic datasets whereas other papers embedded tables or images that formed the shared data. Overall, the journal seems to make a positive contribution to science by enabling access to multiple types of data, even though its papers rarely lead to data reuse.

Suggested Citation

  • Mike Thelwall, 2020. "Data in Brief: Can a mega-journal for data be useful?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 697-709, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:124:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03437-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03437-1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Christine L. Borgman, 2012. "The conundrum of sharing research data," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(6), pages 1059-1078, June.
    2. Gianmaria Silvello, 2018. "Theory and practice of data citation," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 69(1), pages 6-20, January.
    3. Mike Thelwall & Paul Wilson, 2016. "Mendeley readership altmetrics for medical articles: An analysis of 45 fields," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(8), pages 1962-1972, August.
    4. Mike Thelwall, 2017. "Are Mendeley reader counts useful impact indicators in all fields?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(3), pages 1721-1731, December.
    5. Thelwall, Mike, 2018. "Dimensions: A competitor to Scopus and the Web of Science?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 430-435.
    6. Mike Thelwall, 2018. "Early Mendeley readers correlate with later citation counts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(3), pages 1231-1240, June.
    7. Nicolas Robinson-García & Evaristo Jiménez-Contreras & Daniel Torres-Salinas, 2016. "Analyzing data citation practices using the data citation index," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(12), pages 2964-2975, December.
    8. Christine L. Borgman, 2012. "The conundrum of sharing research data," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(6), pages 1059-1078, June.
    9. Leonardo Candela & Donatella Castelli & Paolo Manghi & Alice Tani, 2015. "Data journals: A survey," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(9), pages 1747-1762, September.
    10. Ehsan Mohammadi & Mike Thelwall & Stefanie Haustein & Vincent Larivière, 2015. "Who reads research articles? An altmetrics analysis of Mendeley user categories," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 66(9), pages 1832-1846, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Barbara McGillivray & Paola Marongiu & Nilo Pedrazzini & Marton Ribary & Mandy Wigdorowitz & Eleonora Zordan, 2022. "Deep Impact: A Study on the Impact of Data Papers and Datasets in the Humanities and Social Sciences," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-40, October.

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