Open Science ETDs and Institutional Repositories: Making Research Data FAIRer

Graduate students, as potential future full-time researchers, are a population that should show proficiency in data sharing. Though there are many resources that teach data sharing best practices for students, it is difficult to tell how well students do when sharing their data. We compared the FAIRness of non-traditional research output metadata associated with theses and dissertations for records shared in a generalist repository by individual students, and records shared through an institutional repository using the same repository platform. Those shared in an institutional repository were significantly FAIRer, as measured by metadata richness and interoperability, and had higher views per month. The only measure where records shared by students exceed institutional records is listing funding sources. We also examine how multiple related research outputs are grouped and offer suggestions to improve interoperability. We conclude that our sample population of graduate students sharing research outputs are not yet proficient in applying the FAIR principles. The review process and oversight that are often part of institutional repositories can offer a measurable benefit to non-traditional ETD outputs.