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Data Availability in Political Science Journals

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Abstract

A characteristic of recent decades of scholarly work in the social sciences has been the increased amounts of empirical research. Access and availability of data are prerequisites for further research, replication work, and scientific development. As international peer-reviewed journals have gradually become the central forum for research debate, moves towards data sharing are dependent upon the policies of journals regarding data availability. This article examines contemporary data availability policies in political science and investigates the extent to which journals adopt such policies and their content. It also identifies a few factors associated with the existence of such policies.

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Correspondence to sergiu gherghina.

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Supplementary information accompanies the paper on European Political Science website (http://www.palgrave.com/eps)

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Appendices

Appendix A

Table A1

Table A1 Journal acronyms

Appendix B

LETTER TO THE EDITORS

Department of Data Archive for the Social SciencesGESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences Cologne25 October 2011Dear Journal Editor,

The International Data Infrastructure team at the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences is conducting a review of international, peer-reviewed journal data policies to assess the state of data availability in the social sciences (i.e. if the authors are requested to make available the unique data used in their analysis). You may be aware that a range of academic journals are moving towards a requirement that the data supporting publications be archived in an appropriate place for both preservation and accessibility for data reuse. The intention of our team is to create a resource that concentrates the data policies of the 200 leading political science journals in order to increase researcher incentives for further data sharing. Such a resource will allow trends in data sharing requirements to become apparent and provide researchers with a useful reference point. The results will be publicly available on our institution's website and in an academic work within the following 6 months.

During the first phase of the investigation, we analysed data availability online provisions (e.g. the existence of a policy regarding data availability in the guidelines for submission). We are now into the second phase of this review, examining those journals without an explicit, publicly accessible data policy. Consequently, we would be appreciative if you could confirm by 1 December 2011 if your journal has (e.g. following the acceptance of a manuscript), or is planning to adopt, a policy. If you already have such a policy, we would be grateful if you could share it with us for analysis. The e-mail address where it can be sent is: sergiu.gherghina@gesis.org. For any supplementary details, please do not hesitate to contact us at the same e-mail address.

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gherghina, s., katsanidou, a. Data Availability in Political Science Journals. Eur Polit Sci 12, 333–349 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2013.8

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