Joint FORCE11 & COPE Research Data Publishing Ethics Working Group Flowcharts

The FORCE11–COPE Research Data Publishing Ethics Working Group has released a set of flowcharts aimed at promoting best practices around ethical challenges in data publication. The flowcharts cover four areas of potential ethical concerns:

• authorship and contribution conflicts
• legal and regulatory restrictions
• scientific rigor or completeness of datasets
• potential risks associated with the release of the data

The eight flowcharts provide step-by-step guidance for each of the four categories, both for cases raised prior to the publication of the dataset and for handling issues involving published datasets. These flowcharts are based on the recommendations for the handling of ethical concerns related to the publication of research data, which were released in September 2021 by the FORCE11 Research Data Publishing Ethics Working Group.

The flowcharts are available on Zenodo and via the COPE website

As data sharing and publication become increasingly important in research, it is critical that ethical concerns related to data publication are addressed. We encourage researchers to review the flowcharts and the recommendations and consider incorporating them into their own data publishing practices.

– By Jennifer Gu, Library

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