Research data support
To promote transparency and reuse of research, npj Urban Sustainability provides authors of accepted papers with enhanced editorial support to describe, share and link to the research data that support papers published in the journal. npj Urban Sustainability, and our journal partner, RMIT University, wish to promote robust, long-term access to research data - providing all supporting data files publicly or, where this is not possible, providing detailed data availability statements. The additional editorial support given to authors with this service aims to achieve this. This additional editorial support is provided at no additional cost to authors.
The service involves a Research Data Editor from Springer Nature's Research Data Support services team working with authors before publication. The Research Data Editor helps authors ensure datasets that can be shared publicly are deposited in appropriate discipline-specific or controlled-access repositories, or in the journal's own data repository. The Research Data Editor also helps to ensure that articles include detailed data availability statements including descriptions of datasets that cannot be shared publicly, and any conditions for accessing datasets. Research Data Editors also create a rich metadata record for each published article in the journal's figshare repository, which also provides a place to publish supporting data files that have not been shared previously.
As a Nature Portfolio journal, npj Urban Sustainability is committed to promoting reproducible research, and follows the data policies of this journal portfolio. For more information please see here. We anticipate that helping authors follow best practice in sharing their research data will increase the visibility of, and promote reuse of, research.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is involvement in Research Data Support mandatory?
A: All primary research papers (Articles, Brief Communications) that are accepted for publication during the initiative, which launched in September 2019, will be reviewed by a Research Data Editor and the authors will be required to take part.
Q: How much will it cost?
A: The additional editorial support from the Research Data Editors for this service has been covered by our partner, RMIT University, and there is no additional cost for authors.
Q: What information is provided in the data and metadata records created by Research Data Editors?
A: Working closely with authors and the journal's editorial team, and using a specially developed process, we capture key information (metadata) about datasets supporting the journal's papers. This includes file names, data types and formats, software needed to access the data. For clinical research data that are not publicly available we capture data storage and access requirements, and conditions of reuse. Unique identifiers for datasets that are deposited in third party repositories are also captured.
Q: Are authors required to deposit data in figshare if they have already shared their data publicly?
A: Nature Research policies suggest, and in some cases require, the use of discipline-specific data repositories, where they exist for an author's datasets. Authors will be given assistance to find discipline-specific repositories and when these are not available, Research Data Editors will help authors deposit their data into npj Urban Sustainability's figshare repository.
Q: Is public data sharing now mandatory as a result of Research Data Support?
A: As per Nature Research’s established policy, public data sharing in discipline-specific repositories is already mandatory for certain data types. Other than for these data types, this service does not mandate public data sharing for additional data types by npj Urban Sustainability authors. It enables authors to follow good practice in data sharing, which may involve public data sharing, or providing detailed and robust information in data availability statements - depending on the type of data associated with the paper.
Q: What are the benefits of npj Urban Sustainability’s Research Data Support?
A: This Research Data Support initiative for npj Urban Sustainability will provide authors of all accepted primary research papers (Articles, Brief Communications) with additional editorial support from a dedicated Research Data Editor. We anticipate this benefiting authors and the journal's research community by:
- Increasing visibility of published research
- Supporting reproducibility by providing more consistent and complete information about data and data availability
- Enabling reuse of research and avoiding duplication of research efforts
- Giving researchers who share research data and metadata more credit for their work
- Developing and refining standards and best practice for describing datasets supporting publications
- Enabling compliance with funding agency and journal policies
We will be monitoring author and editor feedback, usage of articles, research data and metadata. We will refine the editorial process and standards in our data curation process in response to feedback where needed.
Q: What is the difference between this initiative with npj Urban Sustainability and Springer Nature's Research Data Support service?
A: This service with npj Urban Sustainability involves every accepted research paper in the journal being assessed by a Research Data Editor, and authors being given advice not just on datasets that can be shared publicly, but also on producing detailed metadata and data availability statements for datasets that cannot be made publicly available. Every paper published in the journal will have an accompanying data or metadata record in figshare, creating a comprehensive catalogue of the datasets that support papers published in the journal. Springer Nature's Research Data Support service, which launched in March 2018, is an optional service, which can be used by any researcher who has research datasets they want to make easier to cite, share and find.
