Figshare's usefulness in this class and future research - GilesVolmir/Skylar-Scott--308L-Junior-Lab GitHub Wiki

This semester we were required to upload at least one data set to figshare.com. At the time I had run out of time in the lab and never accomplished the assignment, but later in the semester we were encouraged to complete it if we had not already so I did it at this time. I would have to say that in the context of the class it felt simply like busy work, and another username and password to keep up with, but after actually doing it it did not take quite as long as I expected. This means it only took half an hour to 45 minutes, which was non-consecutive which may have made it take longer.

As a class assignment I see its only use as making sure we know such a service exists. Other than this it didn't seem to really do much of anything for my education. It may be useful in later research, but by that time I may not be interested in using figshare, and will have to set myself up at whatever site I use at that point.

Comment by Ant: Well, I asked for brutal honesty. Hahaha. Thanks! And I could see why you feel the way you do. Realistically, there wouldn't be much use for a bunch of data of voltage signals that are quite commonly studied. But from an educator standpoint and from an open science standpoint, having the class's data online on figshare is pretty valuable. But you're right, from your standpoint it isn't really useful unless your data is getting lots of hits (is it?) and/or people are using it.