When you choose to publish with PLOS, your research makes an impact. Make your work accessible to all, without restrictions, and accelerate scientific discovery with options like preprints and published peer review that make your work more Open.
Open Data is a strategy for incorporating research data into the permanent scientific record by releasing it under an Open Access license. Whether data is deposited in a purpose-built repository or published as Supporting Information alongside a research article, Open Data practices ensure that data remains accessible and discoverable. For verification, replication, reuse, and enhanced understanding of research.
Readers rely on raw scientific data to enhance their understanding of published research, for purposes of verification, replication and reanalysis, and to inform future investigations.
Ensure reproducibility
Proactively sharing data ensures that your work remains reproducible over the long term.
Inspire trust
Sharing data demonstrates rigor and signals to the community that the work has integrity.
Receive credit
Making data public opens opportunities to get academic credit for collecting and curating data during the research process.
Make a contribution
Access to data accelerates progress. According to the 2019 State of Open Data report, more than 70% of researchers use open datasets to inform their future research.
Preserve the scientific record
Posting datasets in a repository or uploading them as Supporting Information prevents data loss.
Watch the short video that explores the top benefits of data sharing, what types of research data you should share, and how you can get it ready to help ensure more impact for your research.
Publishing in a PLOS journal carries with it a commitment to make the data underlying the conclusions in your research article publicly available upon publication.
Our data policy underscores the rigor of the research we publish, and gives readers a fuller understanding of each study.
Data sharing has long been a hallmark of high-quality reproducible research. Now, Open Data is becoming...
For PLOS, increasing data-sharing rates—and especially increasing the amount of data shared in a repository—is a high priority.
Ensure that you’re publication-ready and ensure future reproducibility through good data management How you store your data matters. Even after…
All methods of data sharing data facilitate reproduction, improve trust in science, ensure appropriate credit, and prevent data loss. When you choose to deposit your data in a repository, those benefits are magnified and extended.
Detailed metadata and bidirectional linking to and from related articles help to make data in public repositories easily findable.
Machine-readable data formatting allows research in a repository to be incorporated into future systematic reviews or meta analyses more easily.
Repositories assign data its own unique DOI, distinct from that of related research articles, so datasets can accumulate citations in their own right, illustrating the importance and lasting relevance of the data itself.
A 2020 study of more than 500,000 published research articles found articles that link to data in a public repository were likely to have a 25% higher citation rate on average than articles where data is available on request or as Supporting Information.
You already know depositing research data in a repository yields benefits like improved reproducibility, discoverability, and more attention and citations for your research.
PLOS helps to magnify these benefits even further with our Accessible Data icon. When you link to select, popular data repositories, your article earns an eye-catching graphic with a link to the associated dataset, so it’s more visible to readers.
Participating data repositories include:
We aim to add more repositories to the list in future. Read more
The future is open
The PLOS Open Science Toolbox is your source for sci-comm tips and best-practice. Learn practical strategies and hands-on tips to improve reproducibility, increase trust, and maximize the impact of your research through Open Science.
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Learn more about the benefits of Open Science. Open Science