Data access

In the spirit of transparent and reproducible scientific research, journals encourage and sometimes require authors to, as much as realistically possible, make the data underlying their research available to reviewers, editors, and readers. Be sure to check a journal’s author instructions before submitting your manuscript to review its data access policy.  Examples of common journal data access policies include:

• A journal encourages all authors, wherever possible, to publicly release all data underlying any published paper.
• A journal encourages all authors, wherever possible, to publicly release all data underlying any published paper and may require authors to include a Data Availability Statement in their published article that describes if and how the data may be accessed.
• A journal requires all authors, wherever possible, to publicly release all data in a published article as a condition of publication and requires authors to include a Data Availability Statement in their published article.
• A journal requires all authors, wherever possible, to publicly release all data underlying any published paper as a condition of publication. The data must undergo peer review along with the manuscript as part of the acceptance process, and authors are required to include a Data Availability Statement in their published article.

The data access policy for Optica Publishing Group journals encourages authors to provide access to the data underlying the results presented in the article and requires inclusion of a data availability statement that describes if and how any data that were generated or analyzed as part of the study can be accessed.  It also provides example Data Availability Statements covering common situations.