USING AND REUSING DATA

 We are continuing on our academic journey on Data Curation  and this week we are looking at yet another exciting topic, using and reusing data. The value of open data is multifaceted. Nowadays data is created for many purposes and is now increasingly being recognised as a long term intellectual asset. This asset is capable of generating new knowledge, supporting innovation and strengthening future research, (Yatcilla, 2016). Zhang (2024) explains that data use is the primary application of data for the purposes for which it was intended or created for.It is important to understand that the use of data remains pivotal to research, decision making and knowledge among across different disciplines. Piwowar (2013) found out that proper data management practices are important inoder for data to be effectively used and reused. He pointed out that data should be carefully organised, accurately documented, securely stored and available only to authorized personnel.

 In this modern technological era and boosted by data, the big data era is witnessing an emerging data economy, increasing data capital, enhanced data literacy empowerment and growing efforts to foster a data-sharing culture.  According to Safran (2017) the use of data for reasons other than originally intended is broadly termed secondary use or, more appropriately, reuse. It is argued that researchers who produce data must share them and do so in such a way that the data are interpretable and reusable by others, (Borgman, 2012). Data consolidates research by demonstrating the reproduciblity and reliability of deliverables. Borgman (2012) suggests that some reasons for sharing data are that other researchers should be able to reproduce or verify researches of others. Some organisations such as World Bank and World Health Organisation fund research projects and these organisations like to see the findings of the research made public. Other reasons for sharing research data would be to allow others to ask questions of the extant data and also to advance the state of research and innovation. 

Zhang (2024) explains that data sharing principles usually address the responsibilities of sharing data, to the greatest for public funded data since significant investments are meant to promote data sharing. Zhang further explains that the data management plan is one tool that demonstrates the important role of facilitating data sharing in public funded research. For example the European Commission sets a good example by measuring the direct market size of open data. Of critical importance is the metadata which describes the content, structure and context of the data. This is critical as it allows the users to understand how the data was collected and how it can be reused. Jenny (2022) mentions discovering suitable databases, accessing the data, understanding the data and permission to build upon data as some of the requirements for data reuse.

In conclusion data use ensures the immediate application for specific purposes for the which the data was collected whilst data reuse further extends the value of data through secondary means.

REFERENCES

Borgman, C.L (2012). Sharing, reusing and repurposing data. UCLA Centre for Knowledge Infrastructures

Jenny, O (2022). Finding and reusing research data- University of Bergen Library Presentation

Piwowar, H and Vision, T. (2013). Data reuse and the open data citation advantage. Peer J PrePrints April 4, 2013

Safran, C. (2017). Update on data reuse in healthcare. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2017

Zhang, L. (2024).Measuring data reliability in the open science era. Annals of Library and Information Studies Vol 71 , December  2024, pp .384-391.