How often are scientists scooped due to having Open Data?

[selgebali]

Please indicate the following:

• This is a : a) Question

[richelbilderbeek]

Suggested answer

It is hard to measure how often scientists are scooped, as both the parallel discoveries need to be recorded.

However, Hill & Stein, 2019, reports the frequency of scientists getting scooped in a specific dataset, called the Protein Data Bank, where discovered protein structures can be submitted. In the timespan of that study, 64,018 protein structures were unique, where 3,319 were discovered twice, suggesting an estimated 5% chance to getting scooped .

Of course, the context of the paper is quite specific and it is hard to generalize this.

• [1] Hill, Ryan, and Carolyn Stein. "Scooped! Estimating rewards for priority in science." Job Market Paper (2019).