Understanding and Improving Data Repurposing

TL;DR

This paper explores the concept of data repurposing, emphasizing its significance, defining its scope, and proposing a framework to better understand and facilitate the adaptation of existing data for new tasks across various domains.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive framework for data repurposing, distinguishing it from related concepts, and illustrates its application through healthcare and citizen science examples.

Findings

Highlights the importance of data repurposing for organizations and society

Develops a framework for understanding data repurposing activities

Suggests research directions to enhance data repurposing practices

Abstract

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunities to use existing data for tasks not anticipated when those data were collected, resulting in widespread data repurposing. This commentary defines and maps the scope of data repurposing to highlight its importance for organizations and society and the need to study data repurposing as a frontier of data management. We explain how repurposing differs from original data use and data reuse and then develop a framework for data repurposing consisting of concepts and activities for adapting existing data to new tasks. The framework and its implications are illustrated using two examples of repurposing, one in healthcare and one in citizen science. We conclude by suggesting opportunities for research to better understand data repurposing and enable more effective data repurposing practices.