Sharing Publication-Related Data and Materials Responsibilities of Authorship in the Life Sciences (2003) / Chapter Skim
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6. Encouraging Compliance with and Continuing the Development of Standards
6. Encouraging Compliance with and Continuing the Development of Standards
Pages 69-78
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From page 69... ...
Among the consequences cited were the inability to replicate published research, substantial publication delays, and abandonment of promising lines of research. In addition, a majority of geneticists felt that withholding detracted from communication in science, slowed scientific progress, harmed peer relationships, and adversely affected the education of students and postdoctoral fellows.
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From page 70... ...
However, with respect to cases that are reported to journals, journal editors at the workshop reported a high rate of success in getting authors to share published materials and data, noting that a telephone call or letter from the editor-in-chief or managing editor to an author is often sufficient to resolve problems. Many journal editors stated their willingness to enforce standards of sharing, but one editor expressed concern about adjudicating complicated disputes over the sharing of data and materials, particularly those involving legal wrangling over intellectual property issues.
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From page 71... ...
Some workshop participants noted that peer pressure and opinion can be influential in bringing about compliance. A journal might choose to publicly declare an author's noncompliance (after ad honest attempts are exhausted)
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From page 72... ...
It is difficult to find current published policies laid out by universities or organizations that provide research funding regarding formal procedures for resolving problems of noncompliance by their employees or grantees. Although a telephone caD or letter to an author from a program director or other representative of an organization can be effective in achieving compliance, funding organizations and universities, like journals, can encourage compliance earlier in the process by developing and enforcing transparent policies that encourage sharing of research resources.
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From page 73... ...
Other means exist to facilitate and minimize the costs of sharing publication-related research resources, including the deposition of research materials in existing public repositories, such as the American Type Culture Collection, and establishment of new repositories to facilitate sharing. NTH has established repositories to meet the needs of some specific research communities, such as the NIH AIDS Research and Reference Reagent Program (www.aidsreagent.org)
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From page 74... ...
Crystallography: A Case Study The development of standards for sharing publication-related data in crystallography provides a useful illustration of how one community of researchers has worked to establish norms that maximize the scientific value of information produced by individual investigators. It also shows how the research community, in concert with journals and funding organizations, continues to adjust standards and seek their enforcement as the field evolves.
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From page 75... ...
Interest in gaining access to macromolecular-structure data has grown as a result of the continuing development of new methods for analyzing the data and new experimental uses for them, including studies on protein folding, protein family organization, structure prediction, and drug design. In response to that interest, the PDB is evolving from a simple repository of data to one that provides mechanisms for researchers to understand biological function through investigation of sequence and molecular structure.
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From page 76... ...
There are analogies between the evolution of community standards in the crystallography community and the current debate about sharing genome-sequence data on publication. When NIH and some journals first considered requiring immediate release of protein-structure data, various arguments were made against changing the standard.
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From page 77... ...
Community standards, like the principles articulated in this report, are really only valuable to the extent that they are upheld by the scientific journals and honored by the community. The data generated by modern science may be increasingly diverse and complex and present novel challenges, but the power of the principles first established by Henry Oldenburg and the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1665 remain undiminished: The rewards of publication counterbalance inclinations to secrecy.
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From page 78... ...
Funding organizations should provide the recipients of research grants and contracts with the financial resources needed to support dissemination of publication-related data and materials. Recommendation 10.
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