ABSTRACT
Questions of data ownership, stewardship, and sharing have become prominent in research endeavors. Most institutions have policies governing data ownership, research documentation, and records retention. The two major federal funders of basic scientific- and health-related research in the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), both require plans for data sharing. This chapter discusses federal requirements and common institutional practices regarding data ownership, management, and sharing. Institutional policies for research data at academic institutions are often located in faculty handbooks and at other organizations with policy or procedural information. The chapter discusses the predominant philosophy that data collected with public funds belong to the public and should be made as broadly available as possible while protecting private, confidential, and proprietary data. Sharing data and research resources was also covered as was special consideration with respect to confidentiality and privacy protection for human subjects research.
