PUMA publications for /group/researchcode/usageTue Jun 18 17:33:53 CEST 2024Journal of Information Science4887-910Open Government Data: Usage trends and metadata quality492023forschungsdaten metadata governmentalData usage openData quality Open Government Data (OGD) have the potential to support social and economic progress. However, this potential can be frustrated if these data remain unused. Although the literature suggests that OGD data sets’ metadata quality is one of the main factors affecting their use, to the best of our knowledge, no quantitative study provided evidence of this relationship. Considering about 400,000 data sets of 28 national, municipal and international OGD portals, we have programmatically analysed their usage, their metadata quality and the relationship between the two. Our analysis has highlighted three main findings. First, regardless of their size, the software platform adopted, and their administrative and territorial coverage, most OGD data sets are underutilised. Second, OGD portals pay varying attention to the quality of their data sets’ metadata. Third, we did not find clear evidence that data sets’ usage is positively correlated to better metadata publishing practices. Finally, we have considered other factors, such as data sets’ category, and some demographic characteristics of the OGD portals, and analysed their relationship with data sets’ usage, obtaining partially affirmative answers. Tue Jun 18 17:09:58 CEST 2024Journal of Information Science4423-448Do researchers use open research data? Exploring the relationships between usage trends and metadata quality across scientific disciplines from the Figshare case482022forschungsdaten metadata usage quality Open research data (ORD) have been considered a driver of scientific transparency. However, data friction, as the phenomenon of data underutilisation for several causes, has also been pointed out. A factor often called into question for ORD low usage is the quality of the ORD and associated metadata. This work aims to illustrate the use of ORD, published by the Figshare scientific repository, concerning their scientific discipline, their type and compared with the quality of their metadata. Considering all the Figshare resources and carrying out a programmatic quality assessment of their metadata, our analysis highlighted two aspects. First, irrespective of the scientific domain considered, most ORD are under-used, but with exceptional cases which concentrate most researchers’ attention. Second, there was no evidence that the use of ORD is associated with good metadata publishing practices. These two findings opened to a reflection about the potential causes of such data friction.