Academia.edu Lets Researchers Share Their Raw Data (opens in new tab)

Currently 75% of the world's scientific data isn't shared. http://codata2012.tw/news/75-of-research-data-is-never-made-...

The main reason for that is that there is an established reputation system for papers, namely journals, but there isn't one for content formats that aren't papers - data-sets, code, videos, images etc.

Part of what Academia.edu is doing is building a new reputation system in science based on audience metrics: how many people have read your papers, from which countries; how many followers you have etc. We are then attaching various kinds of scientific media to that reputation system in order to accelerate sharing.

The idea is that if you can build your reputation by sharing your data-sets, you're likely to consider doing it.

If your papers are already on Academia.edu, and that is where you share your research output, it's useful to be able to share your data-sets and code too.

Of course that doesn't prevent you from uploading data to other places on the web, such as the site you mention...

Agreed. There are many aspects to changing the scientific ecosystem in such a way that sharing data-sets is the default, not the exception.

My sense is that the most critical aspect here is the incentives aspect. I think if sharing data-sets can enhance a scientist's reputation, and make it easier for them to demonstrate to grant committees that they have had an impact on the field, scientists will put in the work to curate and share data-sets.

You're right to focus on rewards. The rewards have to be there for academics to share their data-sets and code. The feedback loop needs to be closed, so that if you share your data, and that data has an impact, that impact is reflected back on you. You can then take that impact and show it to your tenure/grant committee, who can reward you for it. There are a bunch of startups, Academia.edu being one of them, that are very focused on closing that feedback loop.

Mendeley and ResearchGate are both great companies, but if you look at Quantcast/Compete/Alexa, you'll see that Academia.edu is noticeably larger than them in traffic. Academia.edu also has more users. I'm sorry to hear that Academia.edu doesn't satisfy your use-case though....