Did awarding badges increase data sharing in BMJ Open? A randomized controlled trial.

Area of Science:

• Health and Medical Research
• Open Science
• Reproducible Research

Background:

• Data and code sharing are crucial for reproducible research.
• Evidence-based incentives and studies on data sharing policies are lacking.
• The Open Data Badge was proposed as a potential incentive.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of an Open Data Badge in increasing data sharing rates.
• To assess the impact of offering an Open Data Badge on researchers publishing in BMJ Open.

Main Methods:

• A parallel group randomized controlled trial was conducted with 160 research articles.
• The intervention group received an offer for an Open Data Badge upon data sharing.
• The control group received no badge offer.

Main Results:

• The odds of awarding badges were nearly equal between groups (OR=0.9, 95% CI [0.1, 9.0]).
• Data sharing rates were low in both groups, with only two datasets shared in each.
• The Open Data Badge did not noticeably motivate researchers to share their data.

Conclusions:

• The Open Data Badge was not an effective incentive for increasing data sharing in this study.
• Low data sharing rates persist despite policies and tools for open science.
• Developing effective incentives remains a key challenge for promoting researcher data sharing.