European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) 2017 Date: 18-21 September 2017 Place: Saint-Malo, Franc

HARADA Takashi

IKEUCHI Ui

ITSUMURA Hiroshi

OKABE Yukinori

SATO Sho

池内 有為

逸村 裕

Tsukuba Repository

Data Literacy Perceptions and Research Data
Management Practices by Researchers in Japan
著者 IKEUCHI Ui, HARADA Takashi, SATO Sho, OKABE
Yukinori, ITSUMURA Hiroshi
内容記述 European Conference on Information Literacy
(ECIL) 2017
 Date: 18-21 September 2017
 Place: Saint-Malo, France
year 2017-09-19
URL http://hdl.handle.net/2241/00148306
Data Literacy Perceptions and Research Data Management Practices by 
Researchers in Japan 
 
Ui Ikeuchi 
University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan, oui@slis.tsukuba.ac.jp 
 
Takashi Harada, Sho Sato and Yukinori Okabe 
Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, {ushi, min2fly}@slis.doshisha.ac.jp, yokabe@mail.doshisha.ac.jp 
 
Hiroshi Itsumura 
University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan, hits@slis.tsukuba.ac.jp 
 
Background 
Open research data is one of the important issues in the science and technology policy in Japan. In the Fifth Science 
and Technology Basic Plan (2016–2020), ‘open science’—promoting access to publicly funded research products 
such as research data and papers—is considered a cross-disciplinary issue. The Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 
(2016) states “Japan is partnering with other stakeholders, including funding agencies, universities and other 
research institutes, as well as individual researchers, to build systems for promoting open science”. The Japan 
Science and Technology Agency (JST) published Data Management Policy for Strategic Basic Research Programs, 
which requires in principle that “research directors will create data management plans after approval, and store, 
manage and disclose data according to the approved plan” (JST, 2016) in some research areas for the first time in 
Japan. Despite these policies, open research data is not included in ordinary research lifecycle in many fields. It is 
necessary to develop an appropriate data literacy training and support system for research data management. 
Objectives 
The purpose of this survey is to reveal the current state of data literacy perceptions and data management practices 
by researchers in Japan to build better systems for promoting open science, including data literacy guidance, an open 
data policy, Data Management Plan (DMP), institutional data repositories, and an integrated search system. 
Methodology 
The authors participated in a multinational survey and translated the questionnaire into Japanese. Researchers in all 
disciplines in Japan were invited to the survey by e-mail. Data were collected via LimeSurvey, a web survey system, 
from 24 February to 24 March 2017. The University of Tsukuba Library, the Department of Research Promotion, 
and Doshisha University Organization for Research Initiatives and Development cooperated in the data collection. 
Results 
A total of 586 researchers participated in this survey obtained from 277 academics and 309 doctoral students, of 
which 73.5% of researchers had prior experience in making data available to others. Rates by discipline were as 
follows: Engineering and Technology (94.4%), Natural Sciences (89.8%), Medical and Health Sciences (85.5%), 
Social Sciences (64.5%), and Humanities (51.7%), χ2 = 55.817, p = 0.000. However, only 6.7% claimed that their 
data is openly available to everyone and 74.6% had some concerns regarding sharing data with others, while 73.9% 
would like to receive some formal training regarding data literacy and research data management. 
 
References 
Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2016). 5th Science and Technology Basic Plan. Retrieved February 12, 2017 from 
http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/basic/5thbasicplan.pdf 
Department of Innovation Research and Department of Research Project, Japan Science and Technology Agency (2016). Data 
Management Policy for Strategic Basic Research Programs. Retrieved February 12, 2017 from 
http://www.senryaku.jst.go.jp/teian/en/koubo/data_houshin_en.pdf  
 
Keywords: Data Literacy, Research Data Management, Open Science, Research Data Sharing, Open Research 
Data, Data Management Plan, Multinational Survey 


Data Literacy Perceptions and Research Data Management Practices by Researchers in Japan

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