Making scientific journals fit for research data

Research Data Policies 

More journals and publishers are introducing research data policies. But as the prevalence of policies increases, there is potential to confuse researchers and support staff with numerous or conflicting policy requirements. A new study defines and describes 14 features of journal research data policies and arranges these into a set of six standard policy types or tiers, which can be adopted by journals and publishers to promote data sharing in a way that encourages good practice and is appropriate for their audience’s perceived needs. 

Author Guidelines

In addition to formulating or adapting their research data policy, journals can review and adapt their author guidelines. This provides authors of scientific articles with concrete information on how to deal with data that form the basis of a journal publication. The Enabling FAIR Data in the Earth, Space, and Environmental Sciences initiative has developed a sample text that can be used for this purpose. Check the current version of your journal author guidelines and add the necessary text to cover all topics of the guideline. The text does not have to be copied exactly; as long as the points mentioned are included, this is good enough.