There are journals in the scientific circuit that specialize in publications that describe, not so much the conclusions and results of the analysis of data collected in the course of research, but the data itself and how it was obtained. Articles which describe data sets are usually referred to as data descriptors. They are reviewed by experts in a given discipline and the most important assessment criteria include quality (procedures and the methods adopted), uniqueness and potential usefulness for other researchers. Journals which focus on research data may be interdisciplinary, such as Scientific Data and Data in Brief, or may publish data descriptors from one particular field, such as Geoscientific Model Development. They often also contain other types of publications, such as analyses showing completely new ways of using previously published data sets.

Standard elements

Every journal has prepared its own requirements for authors and its own article structure, but it is possible to identify standard elements included in this type of publications:

  • Data set - which needs to be entered into a research data repository first. Such a repository should function in compliance with FAIR principles, in particular provide a DOI number for a particular data set.
  • Data description - why was the described data collected, what the research project is about.
  • Description of the data set contents - what data is included in the data set, what formats were used, what changes have been made if there are several versions of the data set.
  • Methods - how was the data obtained, what equipment was used and how it was configured, what were the conditions of measurements, etc.
  • Potential for re-use - it is always necessary to determine the type of licence under which the data was published. Some journals choose a Creative Commons licence in advance and it has to be used, whereas other journals only require authors to describe the conditions for use and potential limitations.
List of journals

Below, there is a list of journals which publish data descriptors and which were included in the list of journals prepared by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science (MEiN). Links in the title of the journal lead to the publisher’s website, whereas links to the journal database on the MOST Wiedzy website make it possible to quickly check information on a given journal, including scientific disciplines ascribed to the journal by MEiN.
List of journals point 200-40    Full list of journals

Bibliometric analyses

Bibliometric analyses of Scientific Data and Scientific Reports, journals publishing articles related to research data (data papers, data descriptors), prepared by Beata Adamczak.
Scientific Data    Scientific Reports