Key OD and FAIR data benefits
- Accelerates the pace of discovery
When datasets are openly available, they can be easily accessed and used to create a fuller picture of a given area of inquiry, or analysed by data mining software that can uncover connections not apparent to those who produced the original data. - Helps ensure we don’t miss breakthroughs
There are a huge number of ways to use or analyse any given dataset. What seems like noise to one person could be an important discovery to someone else with a different perspective or analytical technique. - Improves the integrity of the scientific and scholarly record
When the data that underlies findings is accessible, researchers can check each other’s work and ensure that conclusions are built upon a firm foundation. - Open and FAIR data is becoming recognised by many in the research community as an important part of today’s research enterprise
From research funders to publishers, institutions involved in the research process are beginning to require that, at the very least, the data that underlies publications be made openly accessible.
Open Data and FAIR data have the potential to speed up the research process while simultaneously improving our confidence in those results. The access, use, and curation of this huge and growing body of data is central to research.