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Trend in biology journal code-sharing mandates

Determine whether journal-level policies requiring authors to share analytical code are becoming more common across biology journals.

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Background

The paper surveys policy documents from 100 highly cited biology journals and finds that only 10% require authors to share analytical code, in contrast to more widespread requirements for sequencing data. The authors categorize policies across sequencing data, general data, and analysis code, highlighting substantial variability among publishers and journals.

They note that comparing current adoption with earlier studies is complicated because prior surveys included journals from multiple fields and because some influential journals have modified their policies over time, making it challenging to assess temporal trends in code-sharing mandates.

References

It is difficult to gauge whether journal-level code mandates are becoming more common: A 2013 study found 12 out of 170 surveyed journals (7.1%) required the sharing of code, though the journals were from a broader selection of fields including statistics and materials science [20].

— A how-to guide for code-sharing in biology (2401.03068 - Abdill et al., 5 Jan 2024) in Journal policy survey section (paragraph beginning with the cited sentence)