Transparency & Research Data

Data sharing enables others to reuse the results from previous experiments and supports the development of new knowledge that is built on previous findings, thereby making the research process more efficient. Data sharing also supports transparency and reproducibility, which are essential ingredients for enhancing trust in science.

The precise notion of what constitutes research data is different from field to field, but broadly speaking it refers to the result of observations or experiments that validate research findings and which are not already published in an article. Although many data are usually already disseminated as part of an article, there are several types of additional data which are not made available through publication. This can include, but is not limited to, raw data, processed data, software, algorithms, protocols, methods, materials, etc. Athena International Publishing endorses the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines and encourages Authors to make data underlying the findings in their research easily accessible for reproducibility purposes as outlined in this policy.

Data Sharing Principles

Research Data Policy

The Athena International Publishing research data policy is based on an “encourage, but not mandate” concept when it comes to data sharing. As such, Authors are encouraged to deposit their research data in a relevant data repository and to cite and link to the dataset in their article. In cases where data sharing is not possible for some reason, Authors are requested to make a statement to explain why the research data cannot be shared.

Authors reusing data available from public repositories are encouraged to provide program code, scripts for statistical packages and other documentation sufficient to allow an informed researcher to precisely reproduce all the published results.

Authors using original data are encouraged to:

make the data available in a trusted digital repository (note: if all data required to reproduce the reported analysis already appear in the article text, tables and figures then there is no need to also post them to a data repository);
include all variables, treatment conditions and observations described in the article;
provide a full account of the procedures used to collect, pre-process, clean or generate the data;
provide program code, scripts, codebooks and other documentation sufficient to precisely reproduce all the published results;
provide research materials and descriptions of procedures necessary to conduct an independent replication of the research.

Editors of Athena publications will request Authors to provide a Data Availability Statement describing where research data supporting the results in an article can be found. The Data Availability Statement should indicate the following:

whether individual anonymized participant data will be shared;
which data will be shared;
whether additional related documents will be accessible (e.g. study methods, statistical analysis plans, etc.);
when the data will become available and for how long if applicable;
by what access criteria data will be shared (including with whom, for what types of analysis and by what mechanism).

If a manuscript is accepted for publication, the Data Availability Statement will be published in the final article. We encourage Authors to contact our Editors if they are facing difficulties in obtaining data from articles published in Athena publications.