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Prior studies identified a need for further comparison of data-sharing practices across different disciplines and communities. Toward addressing this need, the purpose of this paper is to examine the data-sharing practices of the earthquake engineering (EE) community, which could help inform data-sharing policies in EE and provide different stakeholders of the EE community with suggestions regarding data management and curation.

This study conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 16 EE researchers to gain an understanding of which data might be shared, with whom, under what conditions and why; and their perceptions of data ownership.

This study identified 29 data-sharing factors categorized into five groups. Requirements from funding agencies and academic genealogy were frequent impacts on EE researchers’ data-sharing practices. EE researchers were uncertain of data ownership and their perceptions varied.

Based on the findings, this study provides funding agencies, research institutions, data repositories and other stakeholders of the EE community with suggestions, such as allowing researchers to adjust the timeframe they can withhold data based on project size and the amount of experimental data generated; expanding the types and states of data required to share; defining data ownership in grant requirements; integrating data sharing and curation into curriculum; and collaborating with library and information schools for curriculum development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between researcher characteristics and their use of metadata in their ResearchGate profiles.

This paper reports on one part of a larger study that examined researchers’ use of and engagement with research information management systems (RIMSs). The study’s design included qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 15 researchers and a survey completed by 412 researchers. Detailed reports of findings from the interviews and survey can be found elsewhere. This paper reports on the part of the study that analyzed the use of metadata elements in the ResearchGate profiles of 126 survey participants.

Most researchers shared metadata related to their research rather than their teaching or service. Statistical analyses revealed statistically significant relationships between researchers’ metadata use and their participation levels in RIMSs, as well as between metadata use and researchers’ seniority.

The study’s findings help to identify researchers’ priorities for different metadata elements, as well as to construct profile metadata templates for each specific participation level.