Purpose and Governing Principle
This policy establishes Treata Scholars expectations for transparency about the data and related research objects that support published findings. Its governing principle is: as open as appropriate, as restricted as necessary, and always transparent.
Data availability does not mean that every dataset must be publicly released. Ethical, privacy, consent, legal, security, intellectual-property, cultural, contractual, or other legitimate restrictions may require controlled access or non-disclosure.
Data Availability Statements
Journals should require or define when manuscripts must include a data availability statement. The statement should explain whether supporting data are available, where they can be found, how they can be accessed, or why access is restricted.
Statements should be specific enough to be useful. Generic assertions such as 'available on request' may require additional explanation where the conditions, decision-maker, duration, or legitimate basis for access are material.
What Counts as Supporting Data
Supporting data may include observations, measurements, datasets, derived variables, source data for figures, transcripts, codebooks, analytic outputs, or other materials necessary to understand or verify reported findings. What is reasonably necessary varies by discipline and study design.
Journals may define article-type or discipline-specific expectations rather than applying an identical deposit requirement to every form of scholarship.
Repositories and Persistent Access
Where data can be shared, appropriate repositories are generally preferable to unstable personal websites or temporary file-transfer links. Repository selection may consider discipline, preservation, persistent identifiers, metadata, access controls, and community standards.
Journal instructions may require a discipline-specific repository where one is well established and appropriate. Repository deposition should not expose data that cannot ethically or legally be made public.
Sensitive, Restricted and Controlled-Access Data
Human participant data, confidential records, culturally sensitive information, endangered-species locations, security-sensitive information, proprietary datasets, and other restricted materials may require controlled access or non-disclosure.
Authors should explain restrictions transparently and, where possible, identify a lawful and ethical mechanism by which qualified researchers may request access. Editors should not require authors to violate consent, privacy, law, or legitimate contractual obligations.
Research Code and Computational Materials
When custom code, scripts, workflows, models, or computational environments are material to the reported findings, journals may require or encourage their availability with sufficient documentation to support understanding and reuse.
Code availability does not eliminate the need to describe methods adequately in the article. Proprietary software or legitimate restrictions should be disclosed where they materially affect reproducibility.
Data Citation and Attribution
Datasets and reusable research objects should be cited or referenced in a way that supports attribution and discovery where appropriate. Persistent identifiers should be used when available.
Use of third-party datasets must respect applicable licenses, permissions, access agreements, participant protections, and citation expectations.
Data Integrity and Editorial Access
Authors are responsible for the integrity of the data underlying their work. Editors may request relevant supporting data or documentation when needed for peer review, statistical assessment, image assessment, or investigation of a credible concern.
An inability to make data public is not equivalent to an inability to provide any evidence for editorial assessment. Confidential mechanisms may be appropriate in some circumstances.
Retention and Preservation
Researchers should retain data and relevant records according to applicable institutional, funder, legal, ethical, and disciplinary requirements. Journals should avoid implying a universal retention period where none has been adopted.
Where repositories are used, authors should consider formats, metadata, licensing, and preservation arrangements that support durable access.
Data Sharing, Reuse and Secondary Analysis
Shared data should include enough context to reduce misinterpretation where feasible. Reusers remain responsible for complying with licenses, consent limitations, governance requirements, attribution, and appropriate methodological interpretation.
Data sharing does not transfer authorship of subsequent work automatically, nor does prior generation of a dataset justify authorship without an appropriate contribution to the new work.
Journal Data Policy Profiles
Treata journals may adopt a defined data profile appropriate to their discipline—for example, requiring a data availability statement, strongly expecting sharing where feasible, requiring open data where ethically and legally possible, or requiring use of established discipline repositories.
The selected profile should be public. A journal should not claim an open-data requirement, repository mandate, or exception process that it has not actually adopted.
Concerns and Post-Publication Action
If data are unavailable contrary to a published statement, appear unreliable, or raise significant integrity concerns, editors may request clarification or supporting material and may assess the matter under the Research Misconduct policy.
Where a data problem affects a published article, the record may require correction, expression of concern, or retraction depending on the reliability of the findings and evidence available.
Journal Implementation and Version Control
Core transparency and integrity requirements are publisher-level. The precise data-sharing profile, repository expectations, article-type exceptions, and code requirements may be configured by the journal.
Material changes should be versioned and preserved so that the data requirements applicable to earlier submissions remain identifiable.
Version Control
Version 1.0. This page is the canonical publisher-level text for the current version. Material revisions should be versioned and dated, while superseded versions remain identifiable so that historical applicability can be determined.