By Justin Esarey
After some deliberation, the editorial team at The Political Methodologist has formulated a policy on data access and research transparency that will apply to all TPM submissions from this point forward. The policy is laid out in our instructions for authors, but we also print it here in full.
Authors contributing their work for publication in The Political Methodologist must agree to certain requirements allowing readers to access the data and analytic procedures used to produce the submitted research. These conditions are based on and adapted from the Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT) statement available at http://www.dartstatement.org/.
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1. Authors are required to make supporting materials for any quantitative analysis available on The Political Methodologist’s dataverse before the paper is published. These materials must include:
a) any quantitative data used in their analysis
b) any analytical procedures used to produce quantitative results (e.g., computer code, Stata do files, R script files, spreadsheet calculations, mathematical proofs, etc.).
If there are any restrictions on making the data publicly available (e.g., because of proprietary agreements or Institutional Research Board confidentiality restrictions), authors should notify the editors of these restrictions when the article is submitted. At that point, the editor will either (a) issue a decision granting an exemption to the data sharing policy (with or without conditions) and then review the article, or (b) decline to review the article.
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2. Qualitative sources of supporting information (including but not limited to interview transcripts, copies of archival documents, and ethnographic field notes) may be exempted from the transparency and data-sharing requirements spelled out in item (1) above at the author’s request. However, authors must explicitly request an exemption for qualitative sources of supporting information at the time of submission. At that point, the editor will determine whether the sources qualify under this policy and (a) issue a decision granting an exemption to the data sharing policy (with or without conditions) and then review the article, or (b) decline to review the article.
Note: If an exemption is not explicitly requested at the time of submission, it is expected that authors will make qualitative sources of supporting materials available on The Political Methodologist’s dataverse before the paper is published.
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3. Any supporting materials exempted from transparency and data-sharing requirements must be explicitly identified as such upon publication (e.g., by a footnote indicating this exemption and the reason for the exemption).
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4. Authors must provide appropriate citations to any quantitative data and/or sources of qualitative information used in their analysis. For quantitative data, the citation must identify a dataset’s author(s), title, date, version, and location (e.g., an internet URL or other persistent identifier). Referenced sources (data, archival documents, secondary sources, historical documents, etc.) must be properly cited regardless of any exemption from transparency and data-sharing requirements.