It's all in the timing: calibrating temporal penalties for biomedical data sharing

Area of Science:

• Biomedical data science
• Research data management

Background:

• Biomedical research generates vast datasets, necessitating data sharing initiatives.
• Data Use Certificates (DUCs) govern data access, with penalties for violations, including temporary revocation of data usage rights.
• The common penalty assumes data value depreciates significantly over time, but this assumption lacks empirical evidence.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether the value of biomedical research data, measured by publication impact, depreciates over time.
• To assess the rate of data value depreciation.
• To inform data sharing policies and penalty mechanisms for Data Use Certificate violations.

Main Methods:

• A mixed-effects linear model was employed.
• The study analyzed approximately 1200 publications between 2007 and 2013.
• Publications utilized datasets from the National Institutes of Health's Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes.

Main Results:

• Publication impact factors for datasets from the Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes showed statistically significant depreciation over time.
• The average annual depreciation rate was approximately 10%.

Conclusions:

• Biomedical data retains significant value for subsequent research, depreciating at a slow rate.
• Temporary revocation of data access may be an insufficient deterrent for Data Use Certificate violations.
• Alternative or supplementary penalty mechanisms should be considered for policy enforcement.