Open Data Policy
Studies in Communication Sciences (SComS) is based on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Our journal promotes open science by providing immediate open access to its articles and by encouraging the release and reuse of open data.
Open data, as defined by opendefinition.org, refers to data that can be 'freely reused, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose' (source: https://opendefinition.org/).
To achieve this objective, data must meet the FAIR principles.
Regarding the licensing of research data, researchers must consider ethical standards and the implications of open licenses, such as privacy and intellectual property rights. We encourage researchers to release their data under the CC0, CC BY, or CC BY-SA license, except in cases where restrictive access is justified due to intellectual property or privacy concerns. These are the only Creative Commons licenses that align with the definition of 'open' provided by opendefinition.org.
For authors who have not yet chosen a specific repository for making data available, we suggest using one of the below mentioned options. These have been selected based on the following criteria:
1) free of charge;
2) accessible to everyone without the requirement of being affiliated to a specific institution;
3) comply with the FAIR principles;
4) allow to add new versions of the deposited data;
5) and align with SNSF guidelines.
List of suggested repositories:
- DaSCH (https://www.dasch.swiss/plattform-characteristics)
- SwissUbase (https://www.swissubase.ch/en/)
- Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/)
- Harvard Dataverse (https://dataverse.harvard.edu/)
- Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/)
For more details and a step-by-step explanation of how to link open data to your SComS article, please consult our Open Data Guidelines for Authors.
