Journals to support the Joint Statement for Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT)
In September Louise Corti of the UK Data Service was invited to participate in a meeting in Michigan to further the goal of developing and implementing new data sharing and research transparency standards in political science. The meeting was hosted by ICPSR. The goal of DA-RT - Data Access and Research Transparency - is to support individual scholars, journal editors, and others who want to increase the credibility and legitimacy of work in political science.
DA-RT began work approximately three years ago as an activity of the American Political Science Association (APSA) Council. Council members were motivated by a wide range of concerns: namely wide-ranging reports of failures to replicate published research due to lack of information about the analytical procedures underlying published evidence-based claims; and scholars reporting difficulty in locating data associated with published research.
DA-RT has helped to coordinate some effective dialogue reaching many scholars from every sub-field in the discipline. These interactions have produced new guidelines by the American Political Science Association's Committee on Professional Ethics, Rights and Freedoms, an action-oriented symposium in the January 2014 issue of Political Science, and presentations and courses at national and regional conferences.
A more recent focus has been to support journal editors who publish evidence-based knowledge claims, with some wishing to update their journal's data access requirements and others wanting to encourage authors to make their analytic procedures (such as program code) more accessible.
The September meeting, sponsored by APSA saw journal editors, publishers and data sharing experts agree and produce a joint statement on research transparency which aims to be a base line practice for journals. By November five journals had signed the joint statement: the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Political Analysis, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution.
This is a really exciting moment for social science and signals a significant breakthrough in moving data sharing towards a core research practice. What is most impressive has been the speed at which key actors in the political science journal world have rallied to support collective action.
The UK Data Service is supporting this action and will be seeking to help motivate UK journals to join the shared commitment to introduce a transparency policy for their journals. Some key work to do includes defining and providing guidance on what kind of data, analytic working and code might effectively support evidence-based claims, for quantitative and qualitative research.
Resources
* January 2014 issue of Political Science<http://media.wix.com/ugd/fa8393_d55bef088ac44830bd194b5f80190479.pdf>
* Read the joint statement<http://media.wix.com/ugd/fa8393_da017d3fed824cf587932534c860ea25.pdf>
Many thanks!
Louise
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Louise Corti
Functional Director, Collections Development and Producer Relations
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T +44(0) 1206 872145
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UK Data Service
UK Data Archive
University of Essex
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