Data sharing

Sharing research data promotes scientific progress, openness, and accountability in research. Watch this APA video to learn about the benefits of data sharing and get an overview of best practices and resources for researchers to effectively share their data:

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To facilitate sharing, APA has created a data repositoryopens in new window in partnership with the Center for Open Science on the Open Science Framework. But this is just one of many available options. The Registry of Research Data Repositoriesopens in new window can help researchers identify a repository that best fits their needs.

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APA’s Ethics Code (Section 8.14) instructs researchers to allow other competent professionals access to the data on which their published results are based as long as recipients seek to verify claims through reanalysis—unless confidentiality or legal restrictions prevent sharing.

Sections 3.10 and 8.02 outline the requirements for informed consent to research. The information provided to participants is to include their right to withdraw from the research once participation has begun and the limits of confidentiality.

Consent forms are changing to encompass the implications of public and reusable data; to remind researchers of potential limits of consent already obtained and to be transparent about what consent was obtained.

Many APA Editors require authors to include a statement in the article’s Methods section describing how informed consent was obtained from the participants (or their parents/guardians), including for secondary use of data if applicable, and indicate that the study was conducted in compliance with an appropriate Internal Review Board.

In addition to asking authors to link to shared data in the author note, many APA journals now require statements linking to shared data, materials, and/or code—or specifying their ethical or legal reasons for not sharing:

• Authors should provide a data availability statement indicating whether the data, methods used in the analysis, code, and materials used to conduct the research will be made available to any researcher for purposes of reproducing the results or replicating the procedure. In both the author note and at the end of the method section, either specify where that material will be available or note the ethical or legal reasons for not doing so.