What is Data Sharing?

What is the meaning of data sharing?

Data sharing is the process of making data resources available to multiple users, applications, or organizations. It involves various technologies, legal frameworks, cultural elements, and practices to facilitate secure data access. Data sharing aims to enhance collaboration, decision making, and analysis, as well as promote transparency, research reproducibility, and increase the impact of research data.

Note that data sharing is different from open data, which refers to making data available without any restrictions. When sharing data, organizations need to consider factors like due diligence, data processing principles, and documentation of actions and decisions.

Why is data sharing important?

Data sharing is crucial for several reasons. It enables stakeholders to learn from each other and collaborate on shared priorities, fosters data-driven decision making, and facilitates collaboration among different parties. By sharing data, organizations can promote transparency, enhance research reproducibility, and increase the impact of research data.

Additionally, data sharing helps organizations comply with data processing principles such as lawfulness, fairness, and transparency. It also encourages organizations to establish their lawful basis for sharing data and document their actions and decisions, promoting accountability and trust among stakeholders.

How can organizations effectively share data?

Organizations can effectively share data by implementing the following steps:

1. Consider data sharing as part of their due diligence.

2. Establish what data they're transferring, why they have it in the first place, and their lawful basis for sharing it.

3. Comply with data processing principles, especially lawfulness, fairness, and transparency.

4. Document their actions and decisions to maintain accountability and trust among stakeholders.

5. Utilize technologies, legal frameworks, cultural elements, and practices that facilitate secure data access and collaboration.

What are some challenges and considerations in data sharing?

Some challenges and considerations in data sharing include data security, privacy concerns, legal and regulatory compliance, and ensuring data quality. Organizations must address these challenges by implementing appropriate security measures, respecting data privacy, and adhering to relevant laws and regulations. Moreover, maintaining data quality is essential for accurate analysis and decision making based on shared data.

Organizations should also consider the cultural aspects of data sharing, such as promoting a culture of openness, collaboration, and trust among stakeholders. This encourages the sharing of valuable data resources and fosters innovation and growth.

How can Secoda help with data sharing?

Secoda is a data management platform that uses AI to help data teams manage data sprawl, scale infrastructure, and contain costs. Its platform offers various features such as data catalog, lineage, documents, dictionary, analysis, and data requests. Through these tools, Secoda helps businesses overcome issues like governance, observability, and lengthy setup and integration periods.

Secoda automates data discovery and documentation, creating a data requests portal built into workflows. It integrates with business intelligence, data transformation tools, and databases, applying AI algorithms to streamline the data sharing process. Companies like Panasonic, Mode, and Vanta use Secoda to optimize their data sharing initiatives.