Specific, General, and Target Sharing of Information Among Academic Researchers

National Bureau Of Economic Research Inc, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Information sharing is essential to scientific progress. In principle, unconditional sharing of knowledge among academics is enforced by the priority-based scientific reward system in which the first person to discover a result gets credit for the discovery. There is, however, a tension between communal sharing and the competitive incentives for researchers during the research process itself. A scientist who shares results provides stepping stones for discovery by others who may not acknowledge the contribution. This tension, as well as commercial potential for academic work has led to concerns over misappropriation of scientific research and increased reluctance to share information ad materials. Intellectual Merit: The project involves theory and a survey to support empirical research on what drives academic researchers to share information. The theory considers three contexts in which researchers share: one-on-one situations in which one researcher is asked by another to share specific data or materials; public sharing, such as conference participation where researchers present work that is neither published nor patented at the time of presentation; and target sharing in which they share certain types of information with trusted colleagues prior to public dissemination. Preliminary results suggest that information sharing depends on the conditions in which the research process is embedded, and these conditions themselves depend upon dimensions of scientific policy (e.g., journal and federal funding agency policies). The models also provide hypotheses about the extent to which researchers share (and with whom) as a function of individual characteristics including type of research, age, and rank as well as other environmental factors. The theory provides the context for a survey of academics across a wide array of fields to include engineering, social sciences, biological and medical sciences, mathematics, physics and statistics. Broader Impact: Combined with econometric analysis, the research provides a new framework for understanding of the ways in which open science operates or not across a broad spectrum of academia.