A Data Article (also known as a Data Paper/Note/Release, or Database article) is a publication that is focused on the description of a dataset. It uses the traditional journal article structure, but focuses on the data-collection and methodological aspects and generally not on the interpretation or discussion of the results.
Motivations For Sharing Data through a Data Article¶
Data articles are in line with the FAIR principles, especially since most publishers will encourage you to share the data through a data repository. The benefit of a Data Article is that your output will be peer reviewed, something which is generally not the case for datasets that are archived on data repositories. It also facilitates recognition for datasets through research assessment procedures that are more traditionally focused on publication output. Publishing a data paper will therefore increase the visibility, credibility and usability of the data, as well as giving you credit as a data producer.
You can find out more in our subchapter on publishing a data article or you can read a blogpost on ‘What a data paper could do for you’.
Options to publish a Data Article¶
Below you can find some journals that publish data articles or papers. The costs information was collected in July 2023.
If you are planning to publish an analysis of your published data, it may be worth checking with the journal that they wouldn’t consider a data article on that dataset as ‘prior publication’ (see the F1000Research (non-exhaustive) list of journals on ‘prior publications’).