Implementing the transparency and openness promotion guidelines for data and code to support computational reproducibility within the New Zealand Journal of Ecology

Abstract

The New Zealand Journal of Ecology has chosen to implement Level 1 of the data and code TOP Guidelines as of January 2022; 46(1). The Level 1 requirements are that while there are no expectations to share data or code, authors will be required to be clear about the situation. Simply stating if data or code are openly available or not can be extremely helpful, as attempting to ascertain this fact directly from the authors can be difficult and time-consuming, given the rate at which corresponding author emails cease to function. By implementing this policy, the New Zealand Journal of Ecology aligns itself not only with other major journals in the field, but also the expectations of our community of authors who are already making their data and code openly available. While this new policy does not expect or require any data or code sharing, we wish to encourage the sharing of data and code, so that the New Zealand Journal of Ecology will be supporting scientific reproducibility and benefitting our authors.