30 September 2020
As part of its continuing drive towards a more open and transparent research environment, Oxford University Press (OUP) has recently implemented new research data policies in over 290 of the journals in its portfolio.
The new policy, launched formally earlier this year, provides a framework through which our journals and our society partners can proactively encourage authors to share their research data. There is a strong emphasis on the inclusion of data availability statements, which provide a standard means for improving the transparency of the research data underlying published research, and on the inclusion of full citations to datasets in reference lists, in line with OUP’s endorsement of the FORCE11 Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles.
The policy offers four different levels in order to accommodate the varying needs and established disciplinary practices across subject areas. As the nature of research data varies widely between different disciplines, each individual journal has set a field-appropriate data availability policy. This multi-level approach means that OUP can drive towards open research, while acknowledging that the process cannot be ‘one size fits all’.
Rhodri Jackson, Publishing Director for Open Access at OUP, said, ‘I’m really pleased that so many of our journals have confirmed their support for this research data policy, which we see as a vital part of our continued commitment to quality in all aspects of research publishing. Data availability offers greater transparency, better trust in the literature, and better reproducibility of data. The re-use of data offers enormous potential for rapid development of research findings and helps to fulfil OUP’s mission to further the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide’.
OUP is a signatory to the Center for Open Science’s Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines which served as a framework for our approach. OUP also supports the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, which is reflected in our data citation practices, and is participating in the STM Research Data Year.