The ASTIN Bulletin believes that research articles should contain sufficient information to allow others to understand, verify and replicate new findings. Therefore:

• 1. Authors are encouraged to make resources such as data, materials, protocols and software code (the Resources) available to readers without undue barriers to access.
• 2. Authors must state in the article, how Resources were created and which Resources are available to readers, from where, along with information about any restrictions on the accessibility of the resources (a data availability statement - for examples see below).

Authors should also adhere to any additional requirements that may apply to them in the policies of their research funders and host institutions.

When and how resources should be made available

Resources should be made publicly accessible by the time of publication. There are three ways in which Resources can be made available:

• 1. In the article. Data and methods can be included in the journal article itself.
• 2. As supplementary material. Resources that do not fit within the journal article itself can be included as supplementary material files, hosted by the journal. These will be available to peer-reviewers but will not be copy edited or otherwise modified before publication. See Supplementary material files, below, for more information.
• 3. Deposition in community resources. Resources can also be placed in appropriate external repositories. See Repositories, below, for more information.

Any restrictions on the availability of Resources must be reasonable, such as through material transfer agreements or charges applied to cover distribution costs. If Resources are commercially distributed, then this should be indicated in the published article.

The ASTIN Bulletin assumes no responsibility for the Resources uploaded to external repositories. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the Resources are usable, the files uncorrupted and for any eventual questions from scholars wishing to replicate the data work.

Data Availability Statement

To demonstrate compliance with the ASTIN Bulletin policy, you should include a Data Availability Statement at the end of your manuscript. This should state where any supporting Resources can be accessed and should include the persistent identifier and any other key metadata should also be clearly provided to help users find this data. 

For example:

Data Availability Statement: Replication materials are available in [repository name] at [DOI or stable URL]

If part of the Resources are under embargo or cannot be publicly released for legal, ethical or other exceptional reasons, the Data Availability Statement should state this and any alternative methods of access. This will be considered by ASTIN Bulletin.

For example:

Data Availability Statement: Original data for study are not publicly available due to [state reasons] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

If the article does not employ statistical and quantitative methods (e.g. only qualitative or theoretical studies) and no Resources are available, this should be stated.

For example:

Data Availability Statement: This study does not employ statistical methods and no original data are available.

Sensitive and confidential Resources

Some Resources might not be possible to share publicly. As far as possible, these Resources should be made available to appropriate researchers via a managed application processes. The ideal way to manage this process is through a third party repository that manages such requests as a service. Some repositories that offer this service are available here. In some cases it may be acceptable for Resources to be made available to peer reviewers but not to others.

Articles should not include sensitive information, for example personally identifiable data. Deidentified data should be provided as far as that is safe and practical to do. If that is not possible, aggregated data derived from sensitive data should be provided.

Data supporting figures

The data used to create graphs and other figures should be available to readers to allow further analysis. For example, the numerical values plotted in a graph can be provided as an alternative version of the figure or as a data file in the Supplementary Material.

Images

Original versions of images that have been edited or processed for a journal article should also be accessible in their original form. This is particularly important when an image is processed to highlight or extenuate a particular feature, as the original data allows readers validate the appropriateness of the image processing and the interpretation of the results.

Transparency in design and analysis

Methodology must not be reported in a vague or incomplete manner, and must be described in sufficient detail to allow readers to fully understand, interpret and verify new research findings. Authors should be transparent about their research designs, methods and analytical techniques. The Equator Network is one community that curates reporting guidelines for many study designs, including quantitative and qualitative scholarship across many disciplines.

Statistics

Good reporting of statistical parameters and tests is critical for evaluating the reliability of research findings. Authors should specify key information such as sample sizes, the statistical tests used and the basis for their interpretation. Authors must report the number and type of replications for each experiment.

Supplementary material files

Supplementary material files are not edited or otherwise modified by the journal. Authors should include any information that will be required by others to allow them to access, interpret and process the files. In general there are no rules for what types of Resources or formats should be used. Open, standardized file formats are preferred to proprietary formats, though commonly used or ubiquitous proprietary file formats are acceptable. The file format should be appropriate for the data it contains. For example, data tables should not be provided as PDFs, but as spreadsheets or tabular text formats.

Repositories

Resources and other information or physical materials can be hosted in repositories that:

• Are committed to the long term preservation and accessibility of their content;
• Are supported and recognized by the community as appropriate for the resources they hold;
• Provide stable, unique identifiers for the information they hold;
• Support linking between their database records and associated published research articles;
• Allow free public access to their holdings, with reasonable exceptions (such as administration charges for the distribution of physical materials).

Author’s personal or departmental websites do not meet these requirements. Specialized repositories that are recognized by the academic community as key tools for particular types of Resources should be used whenever possible. Generalist repositories, which can host a wide variety of data types, should be used if no specialized repository exists: examples are Zenodo, Dataverse and the Open Science Framework. As far as possible, repositories should follow FAIR principles to ensure that the materials are findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable (see Wilkinson et al (2016), Scientific Data 3, 160018).