PLOS Data Policy: Update - PLOS Biologue

"Two months after the implementation of the PLOS journals’ data policy, what have we learned from our authors, reviewers, editors, correspondents, and commenters in the blogosphere? More than 16,000 manuscripts have been submitted with a data availability statement In order to optimise the re-use of data by readers and by data miners, authors of all new manuscripts submitted since March 3, 2014 have included a statement about where the data underlying their description of research can be found. At the time of writing, more than 16,000 sets of authors have included information about data availability with their submission. We have had fewer than 10 enquiries per week to data@plos.org from authors who need advice about ‘edge cases’ of data handling and availability – fewer than 1% of authors – and these cases have helped us to further update our FAQ, contributing to a decline in such enquiries over time. We would like to say a huge thankyou to all the authors and editors who have worked with us in this period to iron out wrinkles in our submission processes and helped us make it as easy as possible to capture information about data availability. Special mention is due to the pioneering subset of authors who have already published articles in PLOS journals with a Data Availability Statement, whether all data are provided within the manuscript and its supplementary files or providing links to a domain-specific repository, a non-specific repository or more diverse resources (see Image) ..."