Announcing the Journal of the Medical Library Association’s data sharing policy

Akers, Katherine G.; Read, Kevin; Amos, Liz; Federer, Lisa; Logan, Ayaba; Plutchak, T. Scott

doi:10.5195/jmla.2019.801

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The JMLA data sharing policy states "The JMLA requires authors of Original Investigation, Case Report, and Special Paper articles to (1) place the deidentified data associated with the manuscript in a repository and (2) include a Data Availability Statement in the manuscript describing where and how the data can be accessed" [1]. The JMLA editorial announcing the policy by Akers et al elaborated on the requirements stating that "at least minimal data needed to support or replicate results", and "documentation describing the contents of the data files" must be deposited [2]. A data availability statement, including a URL or DOI for the data, must be provided by the author and included with the published article.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The rationale for publicly available data-that it fosters scientific progress and enables replication and reproducibility of research-is well described in the literature and in the JMLA editorial justifying its requirement [2]. Data sharing workflows for researchers and for repositories are described at a conceptual level by Austin et al [3] with little process detail.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Sharing research data to comply with a journal policy: Experience of a first-time depositor

Burke¹

2021

Hypothesis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Journals in health sciences increasingly require or recommend that authors deposit the data from their research in open repositories. The rationale for publicly available data is well understood, but many researchers lack the time, knowledge, and skills to do it well, if at all. There are few descriptions of the pragmatic process a researcher author undertakes to complete the open data deposit in the literature. When my manuscript for a mixed methods study was accepted by a journal that required shared data as condition of publication, I proceeded to comply despite uncertainty with the process. Purpose The purpose of this work is to describe the experience of an information science researcher and first-time data depositor to complete an open data deposit. The narrative illustrates the questions encountered and choices made in the process. Process Methods To begin the data deposit process, I found guidance from the accepting journal’s policy and rationale for its shared data requirement. A checklist of pragmatic steps from an open repository provided a framework used to outline and organize the process. Process steps included organizing data files, preparing documentation, determining rights and licensing, and determining sharing and permissions. Choices and decisions included which data versions to share, how much data to share, repository choice, and file naming. Processes and decisions varied between the quantitative and qualitative data prepared. Results Two datasets and documentation for each were deposited in the Figshare open repository, thus meeting the journal policy requirements to deposit sufficient data and documentation to replicate the results reported in the journal article, and also meeting the deadline to include a Data Availability Statement with the published article. Conclusion This experience illustrated some practical data sharing issues faced by a librarian author seeking to comply with a journal data sharing policy requirement for publication of an accepted manuscript. Both novice data depositors and data librarians may find this individual experience useful for their own work and the advice they give to others.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sharing research data to comply with a journal policy: Experience of a first-time depositor

Burke¹

2021

Hypothesis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Most recently, this past fall, the JMLA editorial team decided "it is time to 'practice what we preach,' the JMLA is taking a step forward and implementing a firm data sharing policy to increase the rigor and reproducibility of published research, enable data reuse, and promote open science" [45]. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first mandate for data sharing by a peerreviewed library journal, though many encourage data sharing.…”

Section: Open Accessmentioning

confidence: 99%

The move to open: medical library leadership in scholarly communication

Shaffer

2021

jmla

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the years, health sciences librarians have been change agents, leading the charge on issues of importance to the profession and the communities we serve. From its founding in 1898 with the Exchange, the Medical Library Association (MLA) has been dedicated to improving access to health information. In 2003, the Board of Directors published a statement supporting open access to information generated from federally funded scientific and medical research and maintained that having access to timely, relevant, and accurate information is vital to the health of the nation and its education and research programs. At some financial risk, the association made the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) open access and published the entire archive of JMLA and its predecessor, the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, in PubMed Central. Nearly two decades later, the promise of open access and open science finally seems to be coming to fruition. In the 2020 Janet Doe Lecture, Chris Shaffer, AHIP, described the ways that MLA has led the profession, standing behind a shared vision and “walking the walk.” In challenging listeners to embrace open science, he affirmed that, as leaders in improving access to health sciences information since 1898, medical librarians must work in the open science arena to realize our vision “that quality information is essential for improved health.”

show abstract

“…JMLA has long required survey instruments to be submitted and published alongside articles as appendixes, and we often publish additional supplemental materials such as evaluation rubrics, extra tables and figures, and supporting text. Furthermore, JMLA established a data sharing policy in 2019 that requires authors to include a data availability statement in their published article describing how and where the data underlying their results can be accessed [ 3 ]. When we asked respondents how important it was for them to be able to access the appendixes and/or data associated with JMLA articles, many found it moderately important (33%), somewhat important (32%), or very important (29%), whereas only some (6%) indicated that it was not important to be able to access the appendixes and/or data associated with JMLA articles.…”

Section: Article Appendixes and Underlying Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights and opinions of readers of the Journal of the Medical Library Association

Akers¹,

Pionke

Aaronson

et al. 2021

jmla

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA) conducted a readership survey in 2020 to gain a deeper understanding of our readers, their reading habits, and their satisfaction with JMLA’s content, website functionality, and overall quality. A total of 467 readers responded to the survey, most of whom were librarians/information specialists (85%), worked in an academic (62%) or hospital/health care system (27%) library, and were current Medical Library Association members (80%). Most survey respondents (46%) reported reading JMLA articles on a quarterly basis. Over half of respondents (53%) said they used social media to follow new research or publications, with Twitter being the most popular platform. Respondents stated that Original Investigations, Case Reports, Knowledge Syntheses, and Resource Reviews articles were the most enjoyable to read and important to their research and practice. Almost all respondents reported being satisfied or very satisfied (94%) with the JMLA website. Some respondents felt that the content of JMLA leaned more toward academic librarianship than toward clinical/hospital librarianship and that there were not enough articles on collection management or technical services. These opinions and insights of our readers help keep the JMLA editorial team on track toward publishing articles that are of interest and utility to our audience, raising reader awareness of new content, providing a website that is easy to navigate and use, and maintaining our status as the premier journal in health sciences librarianship.

show abstract

Announcing the Journal of the Medical Library Association’s data sharing policy

Cited by 5 publications

References 6 publications

Sharing research data to comply with a journal policy: Experience of a first-time depositor

Sharing research data to comply with a journal policy: Experience of a first-time depositor

The move to open: medical library leadership in scholarly communication

Insights and opinions of readers of the Journal of the Medical Library Association

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About