Why is sharing data useful to me? Why should I share data that I have worked very hard to collect and analyze?

Researchers who share data benefit in the following ways:

• Citations of datasets available from NACDA are harvested by key social science indexes.
• Data in the public domain generate new research which cites the original research.
• Data used for secondary analysis is published more widely than data not shared, extending the research productivity of the original investigator.
• NACDA frees investigators from using their resources to share data.
• NACDA preserves the data, which original researchers can obtain if their copies are lost or destroyed.
• Archiving data helps researchers meet requirements of NIH and NSF data management plans.
• Depositors can access downloads statistics of their study files. The research community’s interest in a dataset can assist with the success of future grant funding proposals.
• The original investigator can more easily collaborate with colleagues on future research projects by using data from NACDA that is available in a variety of formats.