Sharing detailed research data is associated with increased citation rate.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:Sharing research data provides benefit to the general scientific community, but the benefit is less obvious for the investigator who makes his or her data available. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We examined the citation history of 85 cancer microarray clinical trial publications with respect to the availability of their data. The 48% of trials with publicly available microarray data received 85% of the aggregate citations. Publicly available data was significantly (p = 0.006) associated with a 69% increase in citations, independently of journal impact factor, date of publication, and author country of origin using linear regression. SIGNIFICANCE:This correlation between publicly available data and increased literature impact may further motivate investigators to share their detailed research data.