Recommendations for the Role of Publishers in Access to Data

Lin, Jennifer; Strasser, Carly

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001975

Cited by 28 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Costello et al (2013) recommended that all data be published and proposed a multi-step peer-review workflow whereby data quality assurance would continually increase. Lin and Strasser (2014) recommended that publishers continue to expand their role in increasing access to data by streamlining and incentivizing data sharing as well as by creating and enforcing mandatory data availability policies.…”

Section: The Role Of Publishersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological data sharing

Michener

2015

Ecological Informatics

180

153

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Data sharing is the practice of making data available for use by others. Ecologists are increasingly generating and sharing an immense volume of data. Such data may serve to augment existing data collections and can be used for synthesis efforts such as meta-analysis, for parameterizing models, and for verifying research results (i.e., study reproducibility). Large volumes of ecological data may be readily available through institutions or data repositories that are the most comprehensive available and can serve as the core of ecological analysis. Ecological data are also employed outside the research context and are used for decision-making, natural resource management, education, and other purposes. Data sharing has a long history in many domains such as oceanography and the biodiversity sciences (e.g., taxonomic data and museum specimens), but has emerged relatively recently in the ecological sciences. A review of several of the large international and national ecological research programs that have emerged since the mid-1900s highlights the initial failures and more recent successes as well as the underlying causes-from a near absence of effective policies to the emergence of community and data sharing policies coupled with the development and adoption of data and metadata standards and enabling tools. Sociocultural change and the move towards more open science have evolved more rapidly over the past two decades in response to new requirements set forth by governmental organizations, publishers and professional societies. As the scientific culture has changed so has the cyberinfrastructure landscape. The introduction of community-based data repositories, data and metadata standards, software tools, persistent identifiers, and federated search and discovery have all helped promulgate data sharing. Nevertheless, there are many challenges and opportunities especially as we move towards more open science. Cyberinfrastructure challenges include a paucity of easy-to-use metadata management systems, significant difficulties in assessing data quality and provenance, and an absence of analytical and visualization approaches that facilitate data integration and harmonization. Challenges and opportunities abound in the sociocultural arena where funders, researchers, and publishers all have a stake in clarifying policies, roles and responsibilities, as well as in incentivizing data sharing. A set of best practices and examples of software tools are presented that can enable research transparency, reproducibility and new knowledge by facilitating idea generation, research planning, data management and the dissemination of data and results.

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Section: The Role Of Publishersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological data sharing

Michener

2015

Ecological Informatics

180

153

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“…Article and book citation standards have promoted scientific progress enormously, while there are no such universal standards for citing data sets (Altman & King, ). Nevertheless, a number of publishers are crafting their publication policies about data citations (Lin & Strasser, ).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data set mentions and citations: A content analysis of full‐text publications

Zhao

Yan

2017

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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This study provides evidence of data set mentions and citations in multiple disciplines based on a content analysis of 600 publications in PLoS One. We find that data set mentions and citations varied greatly among disciplines in terms of how data sets were collected, referenced, and curated. While a majority of articles provided free access to data, formal ways of data attribution such as DOIs and data citations were used in a limited number of articles. In addition, data reuse took place in less than 30% of the publications that used data, suggesting that researchers are still inclined to create and use their own data sets, rather than reusing previously curated data. This paper provides a comprehensive understanding of how data sets are used in science and helps institutions and publishers make useful data policies.

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“…While arguably problematic, it has the most influence on an individual's credibility and success [8]. As Lin and Strasser write, journals and publishers occupy an important "leverage point in the research process", and are key to affecting the changes needed to realize data sharing as a "fundamental practice" of scholarly communication [17]. There has been significant support for and progress toward this end.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproducible and reusable research: Are journal data sharing policies meeting the mark?

Vasilevsky

Minnier

Haendel

et al. 2016

Preprint

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Background. There is wide agreement in the biomedical research community that research data sharing is a primary ingredient for ensuring that science is more transparent and reproducible. Publishers could play an important role in facilitating and enforcing data sharing; however, many journals have not yet implemented data sharing policies and the requirements vary widely across journals. This study set out to analyze the pervasiveness and quality of data sharing policies in the biomedical literature. Methods. The online author's instructions and editorial policies for 318 biomedical journals were manually reviewed to analyze the journal's data sharing requirements and characteristics. The data sharing policies were ranked using a rubric to determine if data sharing was required, recommended, required only for omics data, or not addressed at all. The data sharing method and licensing recommendations were examined, as well any mention of reproducibility or similar concepts. The data was analyzed for patterns relating to publishing volume, Journal Impact Factor, and the publishing model (open access or subscription) of each journal. Results. 11.9% of journals analyzed explicitly stated that data sharing was required as a condition of publication. 9.1% of journals required data sharing, but did not state that it would affect publication decisions. 23.3% of journals had a statement encouraging authors to share their data but did not require it. There was no mention of data sharing in 31.8% of journals. Impact factors were significantly higher for journals with the strongest data sharing policies compared to all other data sharing mark categories. Open access journals were not more likely to require data sharing than subscription journals. Discussion. Our study confirmed earlier investigations which observed that only a minority of biomedical journals require data sharing, and a significant association between higher Impact Factors and journals with a data sharing requirement. Moreover, while 65.7% of the journals in our study that required data sharing addressed the concept of reproducibility, as with earlier investigations, we found that most data sharing policies did not provide specific guidance on the practices that ensure data is maximally available and reusable.

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Recommendations for the Role of Publishers in Access to Data

Abstract: This community perspective piece calls on publishers to promote and contribute to increasing access to data in their role with eight simple recommendations and example action items.

Cited by 28 publications

References 8 publications

Ecological data sharing

Ecological data sharing

Data set mentions and citations: A content analysis of full‐text publications

Reproducible and reusable research: Are journal data sharing policies meeting the mark?

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