Today, 1 July 2018, is the day that the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has made it compulsory for all journals using ICMJE guidelines (the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals) to include a statement in clinical trial reports saying if and how the study data can be accessed by readers. Many journals and publishers (including non-medical ones) have also recently introduced data accessibility policies, ranging from encouraging the inclusion of data accessibility statements to requiring data uploads as part of manuscript submission and even compulsory data peer review. Researchers need to know what this international trend is about and how it affects them.
Last month, the 2018 Asian-Pacific Conference of the International Society of Managing and Technical Editors was held in Singapore. One of the sessions on day 1 was about online preprint platforms. On day 2, I was one of three Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) representatives to host an interactive workshop, where preprints were mentioned again. In fact, COPE has a new discussion document on preprints and is welcoming feedback from all stakeholders. Today is World Intellectual Property Day, so it is an appropriate day to look at preprints.
By learning how to effectively communicate your research findings at conferences and in research manuscripts, you will increase your chances of becoming an active member of the international academic and research community.
