What a data paper could do for you - some great reasons to make an extra effort

Preparing open data is often seen as a bit of a hassle or an activity that just takes up too much time. But what if I told you it is worth the extra effort?

It is very important for researchers, especially those of us in the early career phase, that all our outputs benefit us in some way in terms of career progression. Journal articles are the most revered research output; even though there are many different forms of output from one project such as blogs, datasets, software, educational resources and many more.

We are also still in the position, particularly those in UK institutions that have to undergo the Research Excellence Framework (REF), that the number of articles we can publish in high impact journals is the ultimate marker of success. Although, I would argue that this is currently changing as there is talk that the REF may change considerably next time around to incorporate more types of research outputs and the stellar work by Hidden REF to highlight the full range of research outputs does bring hope of change to many researchers.

However, at the moment we are in the situation where taking the time and effort to make your data open comes with little reward on it’s own - apart from maybe making you feel pretty damn good for being so sharing! Making open datasets does take more planning and is often only done because it is a requirement of project funding. But, there is a way to reap the reward for all this amazing work - you write a data paper.

So what is a data paper I hear you say?

It is quite a new form of publication, and unlike a research article, it is not meant to report the findings of your data. It is an article focused on describing datasets and the circumstances of their collection - a searchable metadata document. It is also peer reviewed by the journal.

Your dataset needs to first be deposited in an open repository of your choice and then you can use the template provided by the journal to write your article. This structured approach makes these papers simple to write as they are meant to be fairly short and to the point.

For archaeologists, we are very lucky to have a dedicated journal for these types of articles - Journal of Open Archaeology Data (JOAD). The advantage of JOAD is that their article processing cost (APC) is very low, just £100 and they offer a discount or waiver if you do not have the funds to cover this. Other options might be Internet Archaeology, PLOS ONE or Scientific Data, however, APC costs for these journals are considerably higher.

JOAD already has a number of archaeobotanical data papers that you might want to read to get an idea of how they are structured and to see the style of writing needed:

  • Johnston, P., 2014. Archaeobotanical Data from Two Middle and Later Bronze Age Round House Sites in Cork, Ireland. Journal of Open Archaeology Data, 3, p.e1. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/joad.ac
  • Manning, K., Colledge, S., Crema, E., Shennan, S. and Timpson, A., 2016. The Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe. EUROEVOL Dataset 1: Sites, Phases and Radiocarbon Data. Journal of Open Archaeology Data, 5, p.e2. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/joad.40
  • Bates, J., 2019. The Published Archaeobotanical Data from the Indus Civilisation, South Asia, c.3200–1500BC. Journal of Open Archaeology Data, 7, p.5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/joad.57
  • Karoune, E., 2020. Data from “Assessing Open Science Practices in Phytolith Research”. Journal of Open Archaeology Data, 8(1), p.6. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/joad.67 (sorry for the blatant plug of my own article!)

If you need any more encouragement to have a go at writing a data paper, then here are three great reasons to make that extra effort:

1. It makes your data more FAIR

FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data has become the gold standard for open data and is being increasingly adopted in many different disciplines. If you want to make your dataset FAIR, you really need to tell everyone where to find it.Therefore, a data paper shouts the location from the rooftops!

A good place to go for more information about how to make your data FAIR is GO FAIR and also see their FAIRification process.

Part of the FAIR principles are that data are described with rich metadata (F2) and that the metadata clearly and explicitly include the identifier of the data they describe (F3). This is exactly what a data paper is for - describing all the metadata and providing a digital object identifier (DOI) for the dataset.

But writing a data paper does not just increase the findability, it also increases the accessibility of your data. Another part of the FAIR principles is that metadata are retrievable by their identifier (A1). A data paper provides this by having a separate DOI associated with the article and therefore the description of your data.

2. It increases your publications and therefore citations

As mentioned above, as a researcher we all need to be constantly increasing the number of our articles - we often hear ‘publish or die!’. A data paper adds another published peer-reviewed article on top of your research article for the same project.

JOAD has a very quick turn around for those in need of increasing their publication lists quickly and it has the added bonus that it is much easier than a long research article to write due to the template provided by journals.

With this increase in publications will obviously come an increase in citations for you. Again, writing the data paper means more impact for your research!

3. It makes your research more reproducible and sustainable

The transparency produced by writing down your methodology in a structured way means that your research will be easier for others to understand and therefore reproduce. The data paper accompanied with a research compendia attached to a research article is a great way to signal to others that your research is reproducible. You are offering it all up on a plate to them.

Being more open and transparent, and particularly taking a reproducible research approach, makes your research more sustainable. But why is this such a good thing? Conducting research that has been checked and others can review fully means that it can be reused. The research has more longevity and therefore is more cost effective.

This is especially important when it comes to developing new scientific methods for application in archaeological investigations. The methods need to be robust so that the investigations using them and subsequent interpretations made from the results must hold up to scrutiny.

After reading all this way to the bottom of my post, I hope that you will consider writing a data paper for your next dataset as I will be very happy when I read it!

You can cite this blog by using this citation:

Emma Karoune, Esther Plomp, & Jennifer Bates. (2021, July 2). EKaroune/The-Open-Archaeobotanist: The Open Archaeobotanist blog October 2020 to July 2021 (Version v1.0). Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5062417