A guide to identifying your journal’s policies about making your data available.
What Are Journals’ Data Sharing Requirements?
The editorial boards of many top journals are beginning to incentivize or require researchers to share the data from accepted articles. Data sharing increases rigor by allowing independent researchers to check the reproducibility of the results. It also provides evidence if research misconduct is alleged.
Data sharing policies are usually in the journal instructions for authors. Some journals have their own repository for research data, or they recommend a particular destination for shared datasets.
Examples of publisher data sharing requirements:
- Springer Nature requires a data availability statement, mandates public sharing of certain data types, and allows peer reviewers to request to review underlying data.
- FASEB journals require a data availability statement, provide a path for authors to deposit their data into Dryad during submission and peer review, and require data citation.
- Sage encourages authors to share data in a repository, use a data availability statement, and use data citations.
Tip: Make sure to check the author guidelines for your specific journal rather than relying on the publisher's policy.
Where Can I Find Journal Data Sharing Requirements?
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: Data Policy Finder: This wizard from the MSKCC library lets you pull up data policies of journals by publisher. They include a link to the policy, highlights of the policy, and notes. The journals included focus on cancer-related topics.
- Sherpa Services: A searchable database covering several types of open access policies.
- Open Access Directory: Journal open-data policies: Lists journals and highlights of their data sharing policies.
- Gary King: Data Sharing and Replication: Scroll down to “Journal Policies.”
- CHORUS: Publisher Data Availability Policies Index
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Source
MIT Libraries. “Data Management: Journal Requirements.” Accessed December 12, 2023. https://libraries.mit.edu/data-management/share/journal-requirements/.