Data sharing policy

The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences (IJIMS) requires that authors of research articles provide a formal Data Availability Statement (DAS) at the time of submission. We believe that sharing the data underlying scientific conclusions is essential for reproducibility and the advancement of global healthcare.

General Requirements

  1. Mandatory Statement: All original research manuscripts must include a "Data Availability Statement" before the reference section.
  2. Public Repositories: We strongly encourage authors to deposit their de-identified datasets in recognized, persistent repositories (e.g., Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, or Harvard Dataverse) before publication.
  3. Unique Identifiers: Shared data must be associated with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or a unique accession number to ensure it is citable.

Clinical Trials & Patient Privacy

For research involving human subjects, especially clinical trials and Ayurvedic clinical studies:

  • De-identification: Data must be fully de-identified to protect participant anonymity in compliance with GDPR and local Indian privacy laws.
  • ICMJE Compliance: In accordance with ICMJE requirements, clinical trials enrolling participants from 2026 onwards must include a data-sharing plan in the trial's registration.
  • Ethical Constraints: If data cannot be shared due to ethical or legal restrictions (e.g., protected health information), authors must explicitly state these reasons in their DAS.

Data Availability Statement (DAS) Templates

Authors should select the template that best fits their situation:

Situation

Required Statement

Data in a Repository

"The data supporting the findings of this study are openly available in [Name of Repository] at [DOI/URL]."

Data on Request

"The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request."

Data Included in Article

"All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files]."

Ethical Restrictions

"The datasets for this study are not publicly available due to [Reason, e.g., patient privacy] but are available from [Contact] on reasonable request."

FAIR Data Principles

IJIMS advocates for the FAIR Principles to ensure that data is:

  • Findable: Assigned a persistent DOI and rich metadata.
  • Accessible: Retrievable via standard protocols (even if access is restricted).
  • Interoperable: Uses standardized nomenclature (e.g., MeSH terms or Ayurvedic terminology).
  • Reusable: Released with a clear usage license (e.g., CC-BY).

Software and Code Sharing

If a study relies on custom-built software, algorithms, or complex statistical code (e.g., R, Python, Stata), authors are encouraged to share the code via platforms like GitHub or Zenodo. This allows reviewers and readers to verify the analytical pathways used to reach the study's conclusions.

Verification & Compliance

IJIMS reserves the right to request the raw, de-identified data from authors during the peer-review process to verify findings. Failure to comply with data requests without a valid ethical justification may result in the rejection of the manuscript.