Data journals: incentivizing data access and documentation within the scholarly communication system

Abstract

Data journals provide strong incentives for data creators to verify, document and disseminate their data. They also bring data access and documentation into the mainstream of scholarly communication, rewarding data creators through existing mechanisms of peer-reviewed publication and citation tracking. These same advantages are not generally associated with data repositories, or with conventional journals' data-sharing mandates. This article describes the unique advantages of data journals. It also examines the data journal landscape, presenting the characteristics of 13 data journals in the fields of biology, environmental science, chemistry, medicine and health sciences. These journals vary considerably in size, scope, publisher characteristics, length of data reports, data hosting policies, time from submission to first decision, article processing charges, bibliographic index coverage and citation impact. They are similar, however, in their peer review criteria, their open access license terms and the characteristics of their editorial boards. Data journals: incentivizing data access and documentation within the scholarly communication system Keywords data journals; data repositories; incentives; open access; open data 'Researchers recognize the benefits of open data initiatives, but they also want full credit for their contributions' Poor research practices Absence of a culture of data sharing in the academic field Potential for discovery of errors in the data creator's published analyses Inadequate documentation of data-related procedures Failure to save and safeguard data, metadata or statistical code Loss of data or interpretive expertise due to the retirement or migration of personnel Limited data storage and dissemination mechanisms Relatively few journals or other outlets devoted to data publication Lack of technical expertise in data publishing Hardware or software problems Obsolete devices and file formats Limited awareness of open data principles Concern that public disclosure of data will violate legal or ethical norms Difficulty dealing with open access licensing terms (e.g. Creative Commons licenses) Ongoing research Desire to keep data private until the research project is completed Expenditure of effort Considerable effort required to produce documentation that is unlikely to be needed by the data creator in his or her own research Awareness that the expenditure of effort needed to comply with a data request, even if minimal, could be otherwise devoted to activities that bring greater rewards Inadequate credit for data-sharing activities Reluctance to share valuable data due to a general sense of ownership Absence of universal mechanisms, such as authorship and citation, by which data creators can be recognized and rewarded Concern that the costs of data dissemination are considerably greater than the individual rewards-that the sharing of data without compensation, and the use of data without credit, are inherently unfair Concern that commercial firms will use the data inappropriately or witho...

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