Collaboration of social science data archives and scientific journals in the development and implementation of data sharing policies
Major commercial scientific journals publishers have already introduced data sharing and citation policies, while independently published journals are implementing such changes more slowly. As more and more funders of scientific research oblige researchers to be as open as possible in all research results, including data, all journals will have to adapt to support new ways of scientific communication. Social science data archives in Europe and around the world have been established decades ago and have collectively accumulated vast experience in dealing with data, especially those data that are sometimes hard to share because of the various ethical and legal concerns. Because of this knowledge, they have a role to play also in supporting journal editors and publishers in developing and implementing editorial policies related to data sharing and citation.
In this short talk, we will present examples of support activities for journals from the Social Science Data Archives (ADP) from Slovenia, and the Croatian Social Science Data Archive (CROSSDA). Both are Service Providers (SPs) for CESSDA ERIC, which is one of the stategicaly recognised European research infrastructures (RIs) for the social sciences.
ADP, as a coordinator of the project of establishing the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Node Slovenia, together with other partners representing other European RIs (CLARIN and DARIAH), prepared guidelines for Slovenian journals on implementing editorial policies related to data sharing and data citation (Štebe, Bezjak, Dolinar, 2020). The guidelines were based on internationally renowned practices and policies, particularly the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Research Data Policy Framework (Hrynaszkiewicz, I., at. al., 2020) and were followed by four pilot participating journals (from fields of archaeology, history, linguistics and social sciences) who adjusted their journal policies regarding data sharing (Štebe, Dolinar, Bezjak, Inkret, 2020).
Both ADP and CROSSDA, together with other partners from CESSDA, are part of the ongoing CESSDA Journals Outreach project, which started in 2020. As part of project activities, editors-in-chief of several social science journals were contacted to find out their views on data sharing and to discuss possibilities of support that can be provided for journals by data archives. Also, a survey of CESSDA SPs was conducted to explore capacities of data archives for supporting journals. In 2021, two events were organised to discuss transparency in social science research and challenges of sharing data linked to publications with representatives of researchers, journal publishers and data archives.
By now, three Slovenian journals, in cooperation with ADP, have implemented research data policies: Socialno delo Journal, Central European Public Administration Review, and Economic and Business Review. These policies are not mandatory, and so far no author decided to share their data before publishing the article. A different approach was taken by the The Public (Javnost) journal. The guest editor of one supplemental issue requested from authors who already passed the review to share and cite their data before publishing. With support from the ADP, all authors were willing to invest additional effort to prepare the data, documentation and metadata, so that their results can be verified and data can be reused.
In Croatia, one journal – Croatian Sociological Review introduced its first open science policy, which is partly based on TOP Guidelines (Nosek at al., 2021) and included several elements of research transparency, not just data transparency (Vučković Juroš, 2021). Data sharing will not be obligatory, and transparency will be implemented with taking in consideration various epistemological assumptions in the humanities and social sciences. The next step is to define instructions for authors and reviewers to make this policy official, which will be done in cooperation with CROSSDA.
Marijana Glavica
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Croatian Social Science Data Archive
Zagreb, Croatia
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3466-5321Irena Kranjec
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Croatian Social Science Data Archive
Zagreb, CroatiaJanez Štebe
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana
Social Sciences Data Archives
Ljubljana, Slovenia
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6799-8088Sonja Bezjak
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana
Social Sciences Data Archives
Ljubljana, Slovenia
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7046-8811
