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The current outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has exposed global inequalities and frailties in our social and economic systems – and research systems. Failure to disclose or provide access to the data underlying two recent COVID-19 papers published in The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine have highlighted the value of ethical and timely data sharing. The fallout has reinforced Wellcome’s Early Career Researcher Advisory Board’s belief that data must be shared in a way that is most useful to research. 

A data note is a short peer reviewed article that describes why and how a dataset was created.

A key principal of Wellcome Open Research is that all data underlying a publication must be open and FAIR (finable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable), where it is safe to do so. Beyond this, Wellcome Open Research encourages the publication of articles describing datasets (known as ‘data notes’). A data note is a short peer reviewed article that describe why and how a dataset was created. They are a peer-reviewed, fully citable publication with a DOI, offering recognition and credit to data producers, which isn’t always possible within more traditional publishing formats. Data Notes do not undermine the novelty or value of a Research Article which makes use of the published dataset. In fact, Data Notes work best when they can be linked to a traditional Research Article reporting analysis of the published dataset, along with the results and conclusions; and there’s some evidence that linking your publications to your research data could increase the citation potential of your work. And data notes aren’t only relevant for health-related physiologic, laboratory, imaging, and treatment data – they are a useful tool to give context to computational, experimental, observational, synthetic and curated datasets. 

Despite the benefits, the ECRAB recognizes that many researchers may be averse to publishing a data paper. To help ease these anxieties, the ECRAB have identified key cultural and systemic obstacles that often hamper data sharing and explored how to overcome them through our myth busting work. We’re aware that there remain some misconceptions around data sharing and that is why we created our myth busters series to help fight some of the niggling doubts about sharing data openly.

The ECRAB invites you to be part of the greater good and submit a data note for publication on Wellcome Open Research.

Further to that, the ECRAB maintains that data sharing doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. Institutional data stewards can help with expert disciplinary guidance for data sharing and facilitate early planning using a data management plan. Numerous funders also offer services to their grantees to promote data sharing (for example, Wellcome’s Research Data Service pilot with Springer Nature). 

Call for Data Notes

As the drive for transparent research progresses, the ECRAB invites you to be part of the greater good and submit a data note for publication on Wellcome Open Research.

All the information you need around publishing a data note including examples of published data notes on Wellcome Open Research can be found on our data note landing page.

Let’s make data sharing the norm!