RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Open data, trials and new ethics of using others' work
JF Journal of Medical Ethics
JO J Med Ethics
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP e34
OP e34
DO 10.1136/medethics-2019-105898
VO 47
IS 12
A1 Nicholas W Carris
A1 Byron Cheon
A1 Jay Wolfson
YR 2021
UL http://jme.bmj.com/content/47/12/e34.abstract
AB Data and ideas are the capital of research productivity. Is it ethical to preempt the publication of another researcher’s unpublished data or preliminary analysis, perhaps without citation? The long-established answer is ‘certainly not’—but recent ‘open data’ use suggests otherwise. A research competition was held using data from The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT). This SPRINT Data Analysis Challenge created a novel environment for using open data as data became open early. This allowed third-party researchers the opportunity to assess some of the trial’s outcomes before trialists. Could this infringe on trialists’ right to analyse their data? Simultaneously, trialists had access to analyses from submissions to the competition that were not formally ‘published’ with a typical author credit or citation. Therefore, trialists had the opportunity to view the competition submissions and published on those ideas first without a typical way to cite the source of that idea. Could this infringe on researchers’ right to be credited for their ideas? This is not intended as a criticism of open data, the SPRINT Data Analysis Challenge, or similar systems/ventures, but is an effort to objectively note what may be remediable flaws in the worthwhile, growing and dynamic uses of open data. We offer preliminary analytics to shed more light and provide fodder for additional discussion.No data are available.