Research On Policy Guarantee Of Scientific Data Management And Sharing In China

Research data is the data and materials produced in the course of science and technology activities, or the systematic data products and information products according to different requirements. It is not only a product of scientific activities, but also one of the indispensable basic resources in scientific research and innovations. Moreover, it is regarded as the important basis of governments' policy making and decision-making. As a result, the management and sharing of research data has become an important strategic goal of nations around the world, and has received serious attention of the international organizations, governments and scientific research institutions. Formulating sound policies to guide and promote research data's management and sharing has become a common practice among the developed countries. The U.S.A., British, Australia and other developed countries all have made impeccable policies related to data management and sharing, and have gained great benefit, which can be referred by China.The purpose of this thesis is to explore China's research data management and sharing policies based on the investigation of current situation and policy needs of research data management and sharing, as well as the analysis of foreign data management and sharing policies, so as to ensure China's data management and sharing practice. The whole dissertation consists of seven parts; its main contents are as follows:Chapter0IntroductionIt introduces the background and significance of the thesis, as well as the present practice and research status of research data management and sharing. It also illustrates the aim, contents and methods of this study.Chapter1Theoretical basisThis section examines the information management and sharing theory, information life-cycle theory and explores their guiding significance to research data management and sharing practice. Research data is an invaluable information resource, therefore it is necessary to be well managed, exploited and shared under the guidance of information management and sharing theory, so as to maximize its value. Meanwhile, research data has different characteristics during the stages of generation and usage, so we should adopt different strategies to manage and use it under the theory of information life-cycle, in order to get the maximum benefit at the least cost. Chapter2Survey of policy demands of research data management and sharing in ChinaIn order to understand Chinese researchers' status quo of collecting, organizing, preserving and sharing of research data as well as their policy demands, Aiming to provide rationales for establishing China's research data management and sharing policies, the author investigated the policy needs of research data management and sharing. And the results showed that Chinese researchers lack the awareness and professional skills of research data management, and the current practice of research data management and sharing in China is not satisfying. Researchers shared research data mostly with familiars. The insufficient sharing of research data has brought great difficulties to researchers. Thus, most of the respondents are in favor of making research data management and sharing policies. However, there are some worries related to the establishment and implementation of such policies.Chapter3Investigation of research data policies at home and abroadIn order to provide practical basis for establishing Chinese research data management and sharing policies, the author selected the U.S., the UK, Australia, Canada and China as study objects, collected and analyzed the status quo of research data management and sharing policies in these five countries. And the results reveal that funding agencies and research institutions in British and America all have made comprehensive policies related to research data management and sharing, thus effectively promote the practice of research data management and sharing. In the contrast, most Chinese funding agencies and research institutions have not yet enacted research data legislations, which is not beneficial for China's research data management and sharing practice.Chapter4Comparative analysis of domestic and foreign research data management and sharing policiesBased on the investigation of chapter3, the author made a deep analysis on the content of research data management and sharing policies at home and broad respectively, and found that most of the foreign research data management and sharing policies request researchers to make reasonable data management plan (DMP) at the outset of the research project and enhance their management and sharing of research data based on DMP. Meanwhile, foreign research data management and sharing policies have strong feasibility and enforceability. Most of China's existing research data management and sharing policies are made by data sharing centers of China's Research data Sharing Program. Compared to foreign research data policies, there exists the feature of "valuing management but belittling sharing" in China's counterparts. Chapter5Establishing China's research data management and sharing policiesOn the basis of the investigation of present practice of Chinese researchers'research data management as well as their policy demands, along with the comparative analysis of research data management and sharing policies in domestic and overseas, the author put forward China's research data management and sharing policies according to the research data life-cycle theory. The research data policies involve three levels of laws and regulations:national level, funding agency level and scientific institution level. And the national level laws include:research data sharing policies, law on publicizing governmental information, law on State Secrets, law on privacy, laws on intellectual property, and so on; funding agency level policies include:research data management and sharing policy, policy on research data submission, etc.; as for scientific institution level policies, its components include:research data management and sharing policy, intellectual property regulations, academic ethics policy, data privacy policy,and such like.Chapter6Safeguard measures of implementing research data management and sharing policiesThe purpose of formulating research data policies is to promote data management and sharing, so as to realizing its maximum values. Therefore, the policies'full implantation is the key. This chapter proposes some measures to guarantee the implementation of research data management and sharing policies:improving relevant supporting policies, establishing support and service mechanism for the management and sharing of research data, building multi-channel funding support, and setting up corresponding evaluation mechanisms, so as to ensure the implementation of policies.Chapter7ConclusionThis section summarizes the research of the dissertation, and purposes the study plans for the near future research.This paper is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project Name:Study on the guarantee mechanism of Research data Sharing in China, Project No.2012104010205) and is one of the research results of a Humanities and Social Sciences Project supported by the Ministry of Education of P.R. China (Project Name:Study on the Guarantee of Research data Integration and Sharing in China, Project No.13YJA870016).