Research data
Research data for journals
Oxford University Press (OUP) and the journals we publish enforce high standards of rigour in the materials we accept for publication. The availability of data, code and other materials underlying research publications offers greater transparency, better trust in the literature and better reproducibility. Reuse of data offers enormous potential for further scientific and economic development. Making available the data underlying research publications supports our educational and scholarly mission as a department of the University of Oxford.
OUP is a signatory to the Center for Open Science’s Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines which served as a framework for our overall data policy approach. OUP also supports the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles and the recommendations of the FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Group, as reflected in our data and software citation practices.
Citing research data and software
Choosing where to archive your data
Data availability policies
OUP encourages authors, where ethically feasible, to make the research data underlying their articles publicly available. Because the nature of research data varies widely between different disciplines, each individual journal has set a field-appropriate data availability policy based on one of the levels listed below. Please see the individual journal’s Instructions to Authors for further details on the data requirements and citation practices of that publication.
Level 1: The journal encourages all authors, where ethically possible, to publicly release all data underlying any published paper.
Level 2: The journal encourages all authors, where ethically possible, to publicly release all data underlying any published paper. Authors must include a Data Availability Statement in their published article.
Level 3: The journal requires all authors, where ethically possible, to publicly release all data underlying any published paper as a condition of publication. Authors must include a Data Availability Statement in their published article.
Level 4: The journal requires all authors, where ethically possible, to publicly release all data underlying any published paper as a condition of publication. The data must undergo peer review along with the manuscript as part of the acceptance process. Authors must include a Data Availability Statement in their published article.
Data Availability Statements
Data Availability Statements provide a standardised format to describe the availability of data underlying the research results of the article. The statement may refer to original data generated in the course of the study or to third-party data analysed in the article. The statement should describe and provide means of access, where applicable, by linking to the data or providing the required unique identifier.
Sample Data Availability Statements
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Availability of data |
Sample statement |
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Data are available in a repository and can be accessed via a DOI link. |
The data underlying this article are available in [repository name, e.g. the Dryad Digital Repository], at https://dx.doi.org/[doi] |
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Data are available in a repository and can be accessed using a unique identifier other than a DOI. |
The data underlying this article are available in [repository name, e.g. the GenBank Nucleotide Database] at [URL], and can be accessed with [unique identifier, e.g. accession number, deposition number]. |
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All data are incorporated into the article and its online supplementary material. |
The data underlying this article are available in the article and in its online supplementary material. |
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Data cannot be shared for ethical/privacy reasons. |
The data underlying this article cannot be shared publicly due to [describe why the data cannot be shared, e.g. for the privacy of individuals that participated in the study]. The data will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author. |
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Data available on request. |
The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author. |
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Data is owned by a third party. |
The data underlying this article were provided by [third party] under licence / by permission. Data will be shared on request to the corresponding author with permission of [third party]. |
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Data generated at a large-scale facility. |
The data underlying this article were accessed from [name of large-scale facility, include URL and unique identifier for dataset, if available]. The derived data generated in this research will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author. |
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Data derived from a source in the public domain. |
The data underlying this article are available in [repository name, e.g. Zenodo], at https://dx.doi.org/[doi]. The datasets were derived from sources in the public domain: [list sources, including URLs]. |
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Data are subject to an embargo. |
The data underlying this article are subject to an embargo of [period of embargo, e.g. 12 months from the publication date of the article]. Once the embargo expires the data will be available [give details of availability, e.g. in a repository plus embargoed link; upon reasonable request, etc.]. |
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There are no new data associated with this article. |
No new data were generated or analysed in support of this research. |
Please see the Instructions to Authors of your chosen journal for their specific requirements in relation to Data Availability Statements.
Citing research data and software
OUP endorses the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, and the recommendations of the FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Group. Research data and software are legitimate, citable products of research for which citations should be given the same status as citations to publications.
In addition to references to data and software included in a data availability statement, when materials underlying the research article are available in an online source authors should include a full citation in their reference list. The citation should include a persistent link enabling readers to directly access the source, i.e. an online repository.
Citing data and software enables the authors to get credit for their contribution to the research article, and also increases the discoverability of the research data and software.
Data and software citations should include the following minimum information where available:
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Author(s) / Creator(s)
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Date
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Title / Software name
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Publication venue (e.g repository or archive name)
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Persistent identifier (e.g. DOI)
In addition, some journal reference styles may require the following information:
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Version number or date of access
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Bracketed description of material type (e.g. Dataset, Computer software)
*When citing software, if there is an article describing the software it is recommended to cite both the software and the article.
Choosing where to archive your data
OUP encourages authors to share their data and other research materials to support the transparency and reproducibility of their research. Authors should consult the journal Instructions to Authors for recommendations/requirements on where to archive data. Many disciplines have specific requirements for depositing of data in recognised disciplinary repositories.
You may also refer to online resources such as FAIRsharing.org and re3data.org for lists of data repositories, including information on certification status and services offered.
Authors are highly encouraged to select a repository that issues DOIs as this helps to facilitate persistent linking to the dataset from the research article.
There are also a number of generalist data repositories that you may wish to consider when depositing your data:
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Code Ocean (for data and code)
Dryad Digital Repository
A number of Oxford University Press journals sponsor the deposition of data by their authors in the Dryad Digital Repository:
For more information see the journal Instructions to Authors.
