Data sharing policy
RESEARCH DATA AVAILABILITY
Adv Clin Exp Med requires the Authors of all original papers and research letters to make all data necessary to replicate the results of their study publicly available without restriction when the paper is submitted to the journal (relevant information must be registered in the Editorial System at the time of submission). The following provisions apply only to original papers (including research letters). They do not apply to reviews, meta-analyses, study protocols, and research-in-progress papers.
Authors should provide in their paper the original data generated in the research process, and report any secondary data reuse that supports their results and analyses. Authors are not required to submit their entire dataset if only a portion of the data was used in the reported study. Also, Authors do not need to submit the raw data collected during an investigation if the standard in the field is to include data that have been processed. However, Authors have to share via an appropriate repository the basic dataset (both raw and processed, if the latter includes elaborated tables or figures that cannot be published as part of the article) necessary to replicate all the study findings reported in the article, as well as the related metadata.
Publication is conditional on compliance with the journal’s data policy. If restrictions on access to data come to light after publication, we reserve the right to post an Editorial Expression of Concern, contact the Authors’ institutions and funders, or, in extreme cases, retract the publication.
Authors must deposit the data when submitting the paper to the journal. It is not permitted to deposit the dataset after the manuscript has been accepted for publication.
How to share the data?
All the data and related metadata underlying the reported findings should be deposited in appropriate public data repositories unless already provided as part of the submitted article.
If field-specific standards for data deposition exist, we require Authors to comply with such standards. If there are currently no standards in the field, Authors should maximize the accessibility and reusability of the data by selecting a file format from which data can be efficiently extracted (for example, spreadsheets are preferable to PDF files or images when providing tabulated data).
Authors may choose to use a repository of their preference or the one recommended by the editorial office of Adv Clin Exp Med. Repositories may be either subject-specific (for specific types of data, e.g., GenBank, EMBL or DDBJ for gene sequences) or cross-disciplinary (for multiple data types). However, the chosen repository must assign a digital object identifier (DOI) to the deposited dataset, as DOIs are persistent identifiers and are more stable than simple uniform resource locators (URLs); therefore, we require data to be shared in a repository, not on a simple website. Data repositories improve discoverability and accessibility, ensure long-term preservation, and lead to increased attention for the research.
If authors use repositories with stated licensing policies, the policies should not be more restrictive than the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
We recommend the free-of-charge Zenodo repository (https://zenodo.org). Neither Adv Clin Exp Med nor the publisher of the journal (Wroclaw Medical University) has any financial or organizational affiliation with the Zenodo repository. The recommendation to utilize this particular entity is made solely based on its reliability and cost-free nature.
Other free-of-charge repositories frequently used for data sharing include:
- https://figshare.com
- https://dataverse.harvard.edu
- https://data.mendeley.com
- https://osf.io
- https://www.scidb.cn/en
Data Availability Statement
Authors are required to provide a Data Availability Statement (DAS) describing compliance with the journal’s data policy. It should occur in the main text of the manuscript, in the final section Declarations, after Conclusions (https://advances.umw.edu.pl/en/instructions-for-authors/). The statement should include the following information:
The datasets supporting the findings of the current study are openly available in [repository name] at [DOI].
If the article is accepted for publication, the DAS will be published as part of the article.
Please be informed that the link provided by Authors in the DAS is checked by Editors to ensure its validity and the deposited content.
Papers not including any declaration concerning data sharing will not enter peer review until such a declaration is provided.
Exceptions for data sharing
Adv Clin Exp Med does not permit references to “data not shown”.
Any resources available in the public domain should be cited in the reference list or referred to in the main text of the manuscript with an appropriate URL (e.g., statistics programs).
Authors are required to share the data in all cases (or provide it in the manuscript) unless one of the reasons listed below applies.
The manuscripts of Authors who do not share data because of personal interests, such as patents or potential future publications, will not be considered. Similarly, research with conclusions based solely on proprietary data (owned by individuals, institutions, organizations, funders, etc., and not shared) will not be considered for publication, either.
Acceptable restrictions on public data sharing are detailed below.
Please note that Editors may ask for further clarification if you decide that one of the exceptions applies to your manuscript.
A. Embargo on data due to commercial restrictions
If there are commercial restrictions on sharing data, the DAS should be as follows:
The datasets supporting the findings of the current study will be available in [repository name] at [DOI], following a [time period] embargo from the date of publication to allow for the commercialization of research findings.
B. Data available on request due to legal/ethical restrictions
The journal’s data policy does not overrule local legal or ethical frameworks. If such frameworks prevent or limit data release, Authors must make these limitations clear in the DAS at the time of submission. Authors should also provide contact information for an ethics committee or other institutional body that can confirm that such restrictions exist. In such a case, the DAS should be as follows:
The datasets supporting the findings of the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. The data are not publicly available due to legal/ethical reasons [an explanation of the specific reasons for this decision].
If the study participants’ consent cannot be obtained, the DAS should be as follows:
The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the sensitive nature of the research, the supporting data are not available.
However, if data can be shared following their anonymization, such steps should be taken and data should be made openly available (see the “Human research participant data and other sensitive data” section below).
C. Data subject to third-party restrictions
For studies involving third-party data, we encourage Authors to share any data specific to their analyses that they can legally distribute. However, if there are any third-party restrictions on the availability of data, the DAS should be as follows:
The datasets supporting the findings of the current study were used under license, and are available with the permission of [name of the third party and contact information].
D. Data sharing not applicable – no new data generated
If no new data was created while conducting the research, the DAS should be as follows:
Data sharing does not apply to this article, as no new data were generated during the current study.
If no new data were created, but the already available data were used, the DAS should be as follows:
The datasets supporting the findings of the current study were already openly available when the research project commenced, and can be accessed at [reference or DOI].
If all data are already included in the manuscript (its main body, tables and figures), the declaration should be as follows:
Data sharing does not apply to this article, as all data are already included in the manuscript.
Please note that the above does not encompass supplementary/additional files of any kind – there should be no supplementary files since they are not visible to the peer reviewers. All supplementary files should be shared as shared data.
Human research participant data and other sensitive data
For studies involving human research participant data or other sensitive data, we encourage Authors to share de-identified or anonymized data.
Prior to sharing human research participant data, Authors should consult an ethics committee to ensure data is shared in accordance with participant consent and all applicable local laws. Data sharing should never compromise participant privacy. It is, therefore, not appropriate to publicly share personally identifiable data on human research participants.
Supplementary data
Supplementary data are not raw data but any other materials that cannot be published within the paper, but are necessary for the reviewers and the readers to fully understand its contents. A manuscript can contain both shared data and supplementary data, or only shared data and only supplementary data.
Please deposit the supplementary files in the free-of-charge Zenodo repository (https://zenodo.org/) and obtain a single DOI number for the whole package. Each file should be numbered (Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Figure 1, etc.) and at least a one-sentence description of the contents of each file should be provided:
Supplementary Table 1. CAPTION.
Supplementary Table 2. CAPTION.
Supplementary Figure 1. CAPTION.
Supplementary Figure 2. CAPTION.
Please paste both the DOI and the description at the end of the main text. A single description for multiple files within the supplementary material package is not sufficient.
We will publish both the description and DOI at the end of the manuscript, below the Data Availability Statement.
Neither Adv Clin Exp Med nor the publisher of this journal (Wroclaw Medical University) is in any way associated with the Zenodo repository – neither financially nor organizationally. We are simply recommending this entity as a reliable and cost-free third-party data storage opportunity.
Why is data sharing important?
Data sharing fosters scientific progress. Data availability allows and facilitates:
- linking the findings and the supporting evidence
- validation, replication, reanalysis, new analysis, reinterpretation of data, or their inclusion into meta-analyses;
- reproducibility of research;
- verification of methodology and reporting standards;
- data archiving, thus increasing the value of the investment made in funding scientific research;
- reduction of the burden on Authors in preserving and finding old data, and managing data access requests;
- citation and linking of research data and their associated articles, enhancing visibility and ensuring recognition for Authors, data producers and curators.