The Case for Data-sharing Policies and FAIR Sharing Principles: Analyzing Journals and Articles of Engineering and Medical Faculty

Numerous government and private funding agencies require data management plans and encourage data sharing. These mandates and levels of encouragement have extended to journal publications and publishers. Yet current literature indicates data sharing is infrequent despite recommendations and mandates. This article examines one hundred and one research data policies and publisher statements to understand data sharing policies, trends and patterns within scholarly journals. More specifically, it addresses the following research questions: (1) What are the data sharing policies of these research journals, (2) Have these policies improved since the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) study, and (3) What are current journal articles applicability to Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability (FAIR) Sharing Principles. Examining these journals’ research data sharing policies and articles applicability to FAIR Sharing principles provides an opportunity for librarians to review and enhance research data management services provided to researchers and research groups.