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The Korean Journal of Pain (KJP) has initiated a data sharing policy which started in July 2022. All experimental and clinical research articles should state where the data underpinning the research results can be found. This policy is based on the data sharing statement by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) from 2018 [1]. As ICMJE posted a data sharing policy on clinical trials, a new trend has begun in which data previously owned by researchers could be shared with other researchers to secure research transparency and use the shared data as a new resource for further research. The KJP agreed with the ICMJE and decided to start this data sharing policy. In this editorial, we introduce the data sharing policy of the KJP.
THE PURPOSE AND THE BENEFIT OF DATA SHARING
Data sharing supports data validation which maintains a high level of research reproducibility and transparency, resulting in trust in the scientific research process. Reusing the shared data can also lead other investigators to new discoveries. In addition, data sharing can help readers worldwide who read papers published in the KJP better understand the research.
TYPES OF SHARED DATA
Research data usually refer to a broad group of materials associated with the research. They are typically machine-readable digital files. They include, but are not limited to, (1) raw or processed data and metadata files, (2) software codes, (3) models, and (4) algorithms. For data sharing, any format is acceptable (e.g., files for Excel, SPSS, SAS, R, MedCalc, STATA, and NCSS). The datasets should be anonymous (de-identified) and not contain patients’ personal information. The KJP recommends that the authors provide data in a standard format that can be opened and reused by others. Therefore, the authors are requested to provide data files in English, rather than other local languages, so researchers in various countries worldwide can easily understand them.
STEPS THROUGH WHICH DATA ARE SHARED
The KJP asks authors to ensure that relevant data should be available either within the manuscript or through uploading them in public repositories. Authors can deposit their data in appropriate public repositories by themselves and inform the KJP office of the storage location, or they can submit their data to the KJP editorial office to upload the data on their behalf. The KJP office uploads authors’ datasets to our space at Harvard Dataverse (https://dataverse.harvard.edu) to link the papers with the relevant data. The readers of the KJP can find the data sharing articles of the KJP [2–4]. The data sharing process may be concurrent with the manuscript submission or can take place after acceptance. After acceptance, the KJP office will send an email requesting data sharing to the corresponding author.
OPTIONS WHEN DATA SHARING IS NOT POSSIBLE OR DESIRABLE TO BE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Sharing data should be the norm unless justified restrictions apply to the disclosure of data. However, the KJP understands that data sharing is not always possible for various reasons, such as a personal information protection policy or technical limitations. If the research data cannot be publicized, the authors can choose one of the following reasons:
The datasets supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
The datasets supporting the findings of this study are not publicly available due to [REASONS].
The readers of the KJP can find examples of papers where the authors do not want or cannot share data [5,6].
Research data, the results of the researchers’ enthusiasm and patients’ dedication are valuable assets that must be preserved. If these assets are shared and used by many researchers, their value will be even higher. The KJP hopes that many researchers and readers will be interested and participate in data sharing.
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