Data Sharing Policy
Data sharing policy in academic journals is an initiative aimed at encouraging researchers to make the underlying data on which their studies are based available in order to enhance transparency and improve the reproducibility of research, while taking into account privacy considerations as well as legal and ethical constraints. This policy requires authors to disclose their data, specify its availability status, and provide reasons for non-availability where applicable. Such policies typically cover a wide range of materials, including research instruments, documents and texts, compiled datasets, software code, and other related research outputs.
Within this conceptual and operational framework, the University Forum Journal affirms the importance of transparency and openness in scientific research and encourages the sharing of data that support published research findings, where appropriate, ethical, and legally permissible. This policy also aims to enhance research reproducibility and increase the potential for data reuse in future analyses and scientific discoveries.
Principles of the Journal’s Data Sharing Policy
- Encouragement of Data Sharing:
The Journal encourages authors to provide the underlying data supporting their research findings either as supplementary material accompanying the article or by depositing it in a trusted public or institutional data repository.
- Data Disclosure:
Researchers must provide a clear data availability statement within their manuscripts, indicating whether the data is publicly available (Public Dataset), available upon request, or subject to restrictions (e.g., confidentiality, institutional or legal constraints).
- Adequate Data Description:
Sufficient documentation must be provided to ensure that the data can be understood and reused effectively. This includes metadata such as methodology, variables, units of measurement, dates, and other relevant descriptive information.
Although data sharing is an important practice from both practical and epistemological perspectives, it requires adherence to a set of procedures and principles. Accordingly, the Journal provides the following recommendations to authors:
Recommendations for Authors
1. Compliance with Ethical and Legal Standards:
Authors must ensure that data sharing complies with all ethical requirements (such as informed consent and privacy protection) and legal obligations (such as intellectual property rights).
2. Definition of Data Types:
Authors should clearly specify the type of data being shared, such as statistical, qualitative, or categorical datasets, among others.
3. Data Citation:
If external datasets are used in the research, they must be properly cited in the reference list, along with clear information on how they can be accessed.
4. Selection of an Appropriate Repository:
Authors are encouraged to use reliable and stable data repositories such as Dryad or Figshare, ensuring long-term preservation and accessibility of the data.
5. Definition of Usage Conditions:
Any specific conditions governing the use of shared data (in addition to the Creative Commons license of the article) must be clearly stated.
6. Exceptions:
The Journal recognizes that data sharing may not always be feasible or appropriate in all cases. Exceptions may include sensitive data related to personal privacy, data subject to confidentiality or intellectual property restrictions, or data that cannot be adequately anonymized. In such cases, authors are required to provide a clear justification for non-sharing.
7. Review During Peer Review:
Compliance with data sharing requirements may be assessed during the peer-review process.
Benefits of Data Sharing
- Enhancing transparency and credibility: Enabling others to verify research findings and assess their validity.
- Improving reproducibility: Facilitating replication of studies by other researchers.
- Promoting new discoveries: Data sharing enables secondary analyses that may lead to additional scientific insights and discoveries.
- Data availability upon request: Authors are encouraged to provide their data upon reasonable request whenever possible, for purposes of academic review or verification.
In conclusion, the University Forum Journal encourages its authors to adopt a culture of data sharing wherever possible, as this contributes to improving the quality and impact of scientific research.
