Understanding and implementing effective data sharing policies is crucial in the realm of academic research. The Northern Journal of Medical Sciences (NJMS) advocates for the open exchange of data, which includes raw data, software, processed data, protocols, algorithms, and methods, provided it doesn’t infringe on the privacy or safety of study participants. This article provides a comprehensive guide to the data sharing policy of the journal and templates for data availability statements.
A. Data Sharing Policies for Public Repositories Issuing DOIs: When research data is made accessible in a public repository that assigns DOIs to datasets, authors can use the following template for their data availability statement: “The data supporting the results of this study are openly available in [repository name] at http://doi.org/[doi], reference number [reference number].”
B. Data Sharing Policies for Public Repositories Without DOIs: For repositories that do not assign DOIs, authors can use this template: “The data supporting the results of this study are openly available in [repository name] at [URL], reference number [reference number].”
C. Data Sharing Policies for Public Domain Resources: When data is available at public domain resources, authors can use a data availability statement similar to the following: “The data supporting the results of this study are available in [repository name] at [URL/DOI], reference number [reference number]. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: [list resources and URLs].”
D. Data Sharing Policies for Commercial Research: For data sets that are unavailable for a set duration due to the commercial nature of research findings, the following data availability statement can be used: “The data supporting the results of this study will be available in [repository name] at [URL / DOI link] following an embargo from the date of publication to allow for commercialization of research findings.”
E. Data Sharing Policies for Privacy or Ethical Considerations: When authors prefer not to publicly release the data but are willing to share it on request due to privacy or ethical considerations, they can use the following data availability statements: “The data supporting the results of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.”
F. Data Sharing Policies for Third Party Restrictions: In cases where data is subject to third-party restrictions, the following data availability statement can be used: “The data supporting the results of this study are subject to third-party restrictions and are available on request.”
G. Data Sharing Policies for Studies Without New Data: In situations where no new data was collected or analyzed for the study, authors can use a data availability statement similar to the following: “Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.”
H. Authors Unwilling to Share Data: Authors can simply state that they do not wish to share data if they so choose.
I. Data Sharing Policies for Manuscript-Attached Data: Authors are encouraged to share their research data with the journal, and if they choose to do so, they may simply mention it in the data availability statement, e.g., “The data that supports the findings of this study are available in the supplementary material of this article.”