This journal supports best practices in research openness and transparency. The policies below outline our expectations for authors to help ensure that the research results we publish are as transparent as possible.
Recommendations for the field
In October 2024, the journal Network Science published the following commentary presenting recommendations for whether, what, when, and where network data and materials should be shared:
Neal ZP, Almquist ZW, Bagrow J, et al. Recommendations for sharing network data and materials. Network Science. 2024;12(4):404-417. doi:10.1017/nws.2024.16
Network Science and its publisher Cambridge University Press endorse these recommendations, which can be summarised as follows:
Researchers should share their network data and materials, but may restrict access when necessary to prevent harm, comply with regulations, or protect privacy.
Researchers should share the network data and materials necessary to reproduce reported results, but researchers may choose to share additional data and materials that facilitate their re-use for other purposes.
Researchers should share their network data and materials when an associated manuscript is published, but researchers may choose to share earlier in the dissemination and peer review process.
Researchers should share their network data and materials in a repository that is publicly accessible, searchable, versionable, and offers Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs).
For more discussion, see the website of the corresponding author, Zachary Neal.
The journal's policy (below) and its process are in line with these recommendations. Authors submitting to Network Science are required to include a data availability statement in their manuscript linking to an open repository containing the network data and materials necessary to reproduce their results, or to provide an adequate statement why these materials cannot be made available. If you have any questions about this, contact [email protected]
Data availability
All manuscripts submitted to this journal must contain a Data Availability Statement, explaining where and how readers can access the data underpinning the research published in the manuscript.
We require all data underpinning your research to be made available to readers through an appropriate repository. In particular, repositories that provide persistent identifiers and have robust preservation policies will help to ensure the long-term integrity of published research. This policy applies to both quantitative data and qualitative materials.
It is not acceptable for your Data Availability Statement to say that data are “available on request” from the authors. If you cannot make your data publicly available due to ethical or legal concerns, please contact the editorial office to discuss an exemption to this policy.
If your code is stored and managed in GitHub, please make use of GitHub’s integration with Zenodo to create an archive of your code at the time of manuscript submission. This ensures that other researchers can access a version of your code as it was at the time you published your research, even if you later make changes in GitHub. You will receive a Zenodo DOI so that your code can be formally cited by others.
Citing data and other materials
We encourage authors to cite any materials and data they have used in their research, alongside literature citations, to recognise the importance of all kinds of research outputs.