A recent article from Library Journal highlights a critical problem in research data management:
“Hundreds of new pieces of scientific research are published every month, in fields from physics to biology. While the studies themselves are assiduously archived by publishers, the underlying data researchers analyze to come to their published conclusions can be another story. A recent study in the journal Current Biology found that the data that forms the backbone of those studies becomes less and less accessible to researchers over the years. That lack of archiving, says University of British Columbia zoologist Tim Vines, represents a missed opportunity for the scientific community as a whole.”
The article referenced is The Availability of Research Data Declines Rapidly with Article Age.