Comment on:
The following comment refers to this/these guideline(s)
Guideline 13
Providing public access to research results
As a rule, researchers make all results available as part of scientific/academic discourse. In specific cases, however, there may be reasons not to make results publicly available (in the narrower sense of publication, but also in a broader sense through other communication channels); this decision must not depend on third parties. Researchers decide autonomously – with due regard for the conventions of the relevant subject area – whether, how and where to disseminate their results. If it has been decided to make results available in the public domain, researchers describe them clearly and in full. Where possible and reasonable, this includes making the research data, materials and information on which the results are based, as well as the methods and software used, available and fully explaining the work processes. Software programmed by researchers them- selves is made publicly available along with the source code. Researchers provide full and correct information about their own preliminary work and that of others.
Explanations:
In the interest of transparency and to enable research to be referred to and reused by others, whenever possible researchers make the research data and principal materials on which a publication is based available in recognised archives and repositories in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Restrictions may apply to public availability in the case of patent applications. If self-developed research software is to be made available to third parties, an appropriate licence is provided.
In line with the principle of “quality over quantity”, researchers avoid split- ting research into inappropriately small publications. They limit the repetition of content from publications of which they were (co-)authors to that which is necessary to enable the reader to understand the context. They cite results previously made publicly available unless, in exceptional cases, this is deemed unnecessary by the general conventions of the discipline.
What is the correct interpretation of the sentence: “Software programmed by researchers themselves is made publicly available along with the source code”?
The sentence “Software programmed by researchers themselves is made publicly available along with the source code” is intrinsically linked to the concept of enabling public availability as introduced in Guideline 7 (“Cross-phase quality assurance”). Enabling public availability can – in a narrower sense – take the form of publication, but in a broader sense it can also happen “through other communication channels”, as stated in Guideline 7.
The scope available for enabling public availability depends on the individual case and can be organised in different ways and vis-à-vis different groups of individuals, including restricted groups or even limited to a single person and on request. The purpose of the regulation is to take into account the notion of replication as far as this is possible and reasonable.
If this broad understanding of enabling public availability is taken as a basis for Guideline 13, too, the self-programmed software and source code do not necessarily have to be published, put on the internet or otherwise made accessible to the general public or the professional public without restriction.
The comment belongs to the following categories:
GL13 (General)
Keywords:
research softwarepublic accesspublicationreplication/reproduction