Data publishing and sharing policy

Within the UPSCALE project, many publications will arise within and across subprojects. In addition, the UPSCALE project offers exciting opportunities for many collaborative results and publications. This offers the advantages of synergy and increased numbers of publications. The UPSCALE project specifically requires agreements on the documentation, quality, sharing, and publication of data. These agreements are the subject of this policy.

A. DATA POLICY OF THE UPSCALE PROJECT

1 Coverage and definitions
a. This policy applies to all members and staff
b. Project data in the sense of this agreement are conventional measurements (data from measuring instruments, field surveys, generally in tabular form), images (digital photos, satellite data, maps, etc.), GIS-Data (digital maps and modelling data), genetic data as well as resulting (digital) publications, thesis, proceedings and posters.
c. Meta data shall mean any data describing and documenting the project data.

2 Data Management and Publication Committee
a. The UPSCALE project forms a Data Management and Publication Committee, in which every PI has one vote. The committee sets the data standards and also serves to adjudicate possible disputes relating to this policy. In case of disputes, a majority of votes is necessary to make a decision. The committee is headed by the PI of the data base project.

3 Rights and responsibilities
a. Project members (PIs, Postdocs, PhD students, other staff) have a right of access to project data according to the following provisions. The right of access to project data is limited to scientific use.
b. Furthermore, project members have a right, that their intellectual input and their academic interest is respected with regard to the project data in accordance to 5.
c. Each member and staff agrees to have her/his data with metadata stored in the central database of the UPSCALE project at the University of Wrzburg.
d. The data base manager and the respective PI are responsible for the management of this database.
e. In cases of a serious violation of obligations under this agreement the Data Management and Publication Committee of the UPSCALE project may impose adequate sanctions.

4 Documentation of datasets
All datasets have to be documented with meta-information. All data sets will be stored with information on who collected them, version of the data and date of the latest update.
a. Details on deadlines and data formats will be given by the database project.

5 Access to data in the UPSCALE project database
All members and staff have free access to the meta-information.
a. After request and approval by the respective data owner, each member or scientific staff will get access to the original data in due time. The scientists originally obtaining the data and the PI of their project will be informed when data are used in other subprojects or work packages and give their consent prior to data publication. Of course, scientists making use of data supplied by other scientists for scientific publication must acknowledge the use of the data appropriately (see below).
b. Release of data to non-members of the UPSCALE project will be an exception for which explicit permission has to be sought of the Data Management and Publication Committee.
c. All data will be made publicly available taking into account privacy issues and in accordance with standards set by DFG (https://www.dfg.de/en/research_funding/proposal_review_decision/applicants/research_data/index.html).

6 Use of data collected by UPSCALE project
a. Data use must always be based on an agreement between the original data supplier and the data user. Original data suppliers are the scientists originally obtaining the data and the PIs of the respective projects. The latter are responsible for supplying the data obtained by all staff of their project to the database.
b. Data accessed by a scientist must only be used for purposes necessary to carry out his/her own work in UPSCALE project. Data accessed must only be used for scientific purposes, i.e., commercial use of data is not allowed. It is prohibited to distribute other scientist's data to a third party without the written consent of the scientist.

7 Delivery of data and quality control
a. Data need to be deposited as fast as possible, normally within half a year, and at the latest one year after the field sampling or laboratory analysis has been completed.
Data quality is controlled by careful review of the different components saved to the database.

B. PUBLICATION POLICY OF THE UPSCALE project

The success of the UPSCALE project depends on successful publication in appropriate journals. Many collaborative papers will have several authors. The people most important in the derivation of a particular result are acknowledged by first authorship (usually the PhD students or Postdoc). To avoid uncertainties about access to data or authorship, UPSCALE project agrees on the following publication policy.

1 General publication rules
a. The UPSCALE project adheres to the DFG guidelines on good scientific practice (https://www.dfg.de/en/research_funding/principles_dfg_funding/good_scientific_practice/)
b. The planning of an experiment or a field campaign, the planning and execution of data collection, the analysis of the data, and the writing of a manuscript all are necessary steps that can merit authorship.
c. Of course, usually the person who originally obtained the data (often PhD students) will publish the results of his/her disciplinary study. To also promote swift publication of collaborative papers in appropriate journals, the following procedure is adopted. Before writing a collaborative paper, credit to the data suppliers is discussed. Often, this credit will consist of co-authorship. Because collaborative synthesis does complement rather than forestall disciplinary publications, the access to data needed for collaborative synthesis should not be blocked by the data supplier.
d. Members and staff planning a publication distribute a tentative title of the paper, a preliminary list of authors and the anticipated journal to the internal UPSCALE project mailing list as early as possible, latest one month before the manuscript is finished. This serves for rapid information on ongoing activities and allows improvements of synthesis work at an early stage.
Members and staff planning to submit a paper to a journal distribute the final version to the internal UPSCALE project mailing list as early as possible, latest 2 weeks before submission. This serves for rapid information on ongoing activities and allows final improvements of synthesis work.

2 Acknowledgement of original data suppliers and co-authorship
a. In the case of providing unpublished data to a paper, the credit of the original data supplier can be in form of co-authorship, mentioning in the acknowledgements or in the figure or table legend or as personal communication. Co-authorship is appropriate if the data contribute important information to the main story of the publication. The other options are appropriate if the data are only used as additional side information. The original data suppliers should decide what form they find appropriate.
b. PhD students and PIs are encouraged to co-author where appropriate. For example, if a PhD project receives intellectual input into the design from a PhD student or a PI from another project, then co-authorship may well be appropriate.