General principles | How to comply | Data Availability Statements | What do we mean by data? | How to make resources available? | Open Practice Badges

To promote more transparent and reproducible research, we ask authors submitting to Data-Centric Engineering to provide a Data Availability Statement in the manuscript to help readers understand how they can access the data, code and other resources that support the research findings.

The journal policy below expands on this requirement. It has been drafted in line with the Center for Open Science’s Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines.

General principles

Data-Centric Engineering believes that research articles should contain sufficient information to allow others to understand, verify, and replicate findings. We therefore believe that whenever possible:

• Authors should make evidence and resources that underpin published findings, such as data, code, materials, and protocols, available to readers without undue barriers to access. We recognise that what constitutes “data” for findings can vary greatly, and covers a broad range of evidence and resources.
• Authors should disclose how any new resources were created, and which resources are available to readers from where, along with information about any restrictions on their accessibility. We understand that in some circumstances, access to resources may need to be limited for legal, ethical, or other exceptional reasons.
• Authors should cite any existing and external data sets, code, materials, or other resources used in a publication in the text, and list them in the reference section. Citations of such resources should include a persistent identifier, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), to ensure future accessibility.

Authors should also adhere to any additional requirements that may apply to them in the policies of their research funders and host institutions.

How to comply

Provide a Data Availability Statement in your manuscript, briefly describing how readers may access the resources that support your findings.

If these resources are publicly available, your Data Availability Statement should state where and how they may be accessed, preferably with a unique, persistent identifier and any applicable licence information.

If these resources are under embargo, or cannot be publicly released for legal, ethical, or other exceptional reasons, your Data Availability Statement should make this clear with a brief explanation. If resources are commercially distributed, this should also be made clear.

If your findings do not rely on any data, code or materials, for example in the case of conceptual or theoretical studies, this should be stated.

Data Availability Statements

Some examples of Data Availability Statements are given below:

• The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at http://doi.org/[doi], reference number [reference number].
• The data that support the findings will be available in [repository name] at [URL / DOI link] following a [6 month] embargo from the date of publication to allow for commercialisation of research findings.
• The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party]. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for this study. Data are available [from the authors / at URL] with the permission of [third party].

For questions on compliance, please contact dce@cambridge.org.

What do we mean by data?

In the interests of supporting transparency and openness, authors should make available any data sets, code, materials, processes, and any other resources that would be necessary for others to fully evaluate the basis for any findings, and to verify or reproduce the work. Authors should include any information that will be required by others to allow them to access, interpret and process these resources.

How to make resources available?

All resources should be available to peer reviewers at the time of submission, with the exception of physical materials. Resources should be made publicly accessible by the time of publication.

Data-Centric Engineering recommends that wherever possible, resources be made publicly available via repositories that:

• Are committed to the long-term preservation and accessibility of their content.
• Are supported and recognised by the community as appropriate for the resources they hold.
• Provide stable, unique identifiers for the information they hold.
• Support linking between their database records and associated published research articles.
• Allow free public access to their holdings, with reasonable exceptions (such as administration charges for the distribution of physical materials).

Authors' personal or departmental websites do not meet these requirements.

Other generalist repositories that can be used include Dryad, Figshare, Dataverse and the Open Science Framework.

Data-Centric Engineering assumes no responsibility for data uploaded to external repositories. Authors are responsible for ensuring that such data are usable, the files uncorrupted, and for answering any questions from scholars wishing to replicate the data work.

Resources can also be made available as supplementary information which will be digitally hosted by Data-Centric Engineering. Supplementary information files will not be copy edited or otherwise modified before publication.

At this time, reviewers are not required to formally review supplementary information or resources that are not included in the article. 

Open Science Badges

DCE supports the idea that research articles should contain sufficient information to allow others to understand, verify and replicate the findings. 

We require authors to provide a Data Availability Statement in the manuscript, describing how readers can access the resources necessary to replicate the findings if they are publicly accessible. If these resources are under embargo, or cannot be publicly released for legal, ethical, commercial or other reasons, the Data Availability Statement should make this clear with a brief explanation. For more details, see the full DCE research transparency policy.

DCE awards Open Science Badges to authors who openly share their data and research materials. 

Authors can apply for an Open Data and/or an Open Materials badge, which are described in detail below. If awarded, these badges display prominently in the published article as a visible reward to the author and clear indication to readers that the article contains links to related data and materials. 

Open Science Badges are an initiative of the Center for Open Science – a non-profit aiming to increase the openness, integrity, and reproducibility of scientific research – and have been adopted by a number of leading journals in different disciplines.

What do the badges mean?

 Open Data

We award an Open Data badge to authors who deposit data in an open-access repository. Authors can satisfy this requirement by depositing their entire dataset or by depositing a slice of it, as long as it allows an independent researcher to reproduce the reported results. If confidentiality is sought, authors may deposit a transformed dataset, as long as it allows reproduction of the reported results (Reiter, 2002). Depending on the methodology, deposited data may include quantitative and qualitative materials, but may not compromise the anonymity of participants or undermine promises of confidentiality. Often, it is easy to remove such identifying information from the dataset while preserving the ability of an independent researcher to reproduce the results. But if access to such identifying information is necessary to reproduce the reported results, then authors are not eligible for an open data badge. The criteria for Open Data are here: https://osf.io/g6u5k/

If the data are statistical, authors are expected to deposit the code necessary to generate the results. Once the data and the code are available, authors may, but are not required to, assist others in using the deposited materials.

 Open Materials

We also award an Open Materials badge to authors who deposit their research materials (the components of the research methodology, including code) in an open-access repository. The deposited materials should be as complete as possible, to allow an independent researcher to reproduce the reported procedure and analysis. Depending on the methodology, materials may include statistical code, questionnaires, interview questions, experimental procedures, and participant instructions (but not data). The criteria for Open Materials are here: https://osf.io/gc2g8/

Where to deposit the data and code?

DCE recommends that authors make data and code available via public repositories that:

• Are committed to the long-term preservation and accessibility of their content.
• Are supported and recognised by the community as appropriate for the resources they hold.
• Provide stable, unique identifiers for the information they hold.
• Support linking between their database records and associated published research articles.
• Allow free public access to their holdings, with reasonable exceptions (such as administration charges for the distribution of physical materials).

Examples of repositories include: the Open Science Framework, Zenodo and GitHub. Many other generalist and subject specific repositories are listed in the Registry of Research Data Repositories.

Applying for the badges

Authors asked during submission process whether they want to apply for an Open Data and/or an Open Materials badge. The Data Availability Statement should be used to provide the link to the publicly accessible data and materials and provide any additional explanation.

DCE is following the disclosure model in its award of the Open Data and Open Materials badges: authors affirm that they meet the badge criteria through the submission system and their use of the Data Availability Statement. DCE, as the awarding journal, makes a cursory evaluation of the data and materials. This includes checking that the provided link leads to the data or materials in an open repository, that they look appropriate and that they relate to the article. DCE does not perform a full peer review of the data or materials. The onus is on authors to follow the criteria for each badge and they are accountable to the community for the accuracy of their statements. 

In applying for the Open Data badge authors are disclosing and confirming that:

• They have provided the URL, DOI, or other permanent path for accessing the data in a public, open access repository in the Data Availability Statement.
• There is sufficient information for an independent researcher to reproduce the reported results

In applying for the Open Materials badge authors are disclosing and confirming that:

• They have provided the URL, DOI, or other permanent path for accessing the materials in a public, open access repository in the Data Availability Statement.
• There is sufficient information for an independent researcher to reproduce the reported methodology.