Effects of data repositories on data usage

This case study investigates the effect of data repositories on the use of data for research. How can we establish usage of datasets in research? Are datasets from some repositories more likely to be used for research than other repositories? What factors are relevant for those differences in usage? We analyse these effects in general, but also with a particular interest in the social sciences, based on three different studies:

1. we study the extent to which data usage can be automatically inferred from scholarly publications in the social sciences;
2. we interview scientists in the social sciences about their data usage, and what role data repositories play;
3. and study data usage quantitatively on the basis of the Data Citation Corpus.