The Public Library of Science (PLOS) has announced that it is revising its data-sharing policy for all PLOS journals - authors must make all data publicly available, without restriction, immediately upon publication of the article.
Access to research results, immediately and without restriction, has always been at the heart of PLOS' mission and the wider Open Access movement. However, without similar access to the data underlying the findings, the article can be of limited use. For this reason, PLOS has always required that authors make their data available to other academic researchers who wish to replicate, reanalyze, or build upon the findings published in its journals.
The revision of the data-sharing policy is an effort to increase access to this data. Beginning March 3, 2014, all authors who submit to a PLOS journal will be asked to provide a Data Availability Statement, describing where and how others can access each dataset that underlies the findings. This Data Availability Statement will be published on the first page of each article.
The revised data sharing policy, along with more information about the issues associated with public availability of data, can be reviewed in full at http://www.plos.org/data-access-for-the-open-access-literature-ploss-data-policy/.
