Data Sharing Policy

The Libyan Journal of Dentistry believes that the value of published research is greatly enhanced when the data on which it rests are openly available to the scientific community. This policy sets out the journal's expectations on data sharing, the acceptable repositories for deposit, and the standardized statements that must accompany every original article.

Scope of this Policy

This policy applies to all research data, code, materials, and protocols generated or analyzed during a study published in LJD, including but not limited to:

  • Tabulated clinical or laboratory data;
  • Imaging files (radiographs, photographs, micrographs);
  • Questionnaires, scales, and survey instruments;
  • Statistical analysis scripts and software code;
  • Detailed protocols not fully described in the manuscript.

Tiered Expectations by Article Type

LJD adopts the four-tier ICMJE data-sharing taxonomy:

  • Tier 1 — Required: All clinical trials must include a data-sharing statement. If individual de-identified participant data are shared, the statement must specify what, where, when, and under what access conditions.
  • Tier 2 — Strongly encouraged: Observational human-subjects studies, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and laboratory-based original research are strongly encouraged to share de-identified data and analysis code.
  • Tier 3 — Encouraged: Case reports, case series, and technical notes are encouraged to share any quantitative measurements or images relevant to the conclusions, subject to patient consent.
  • Tier 4 — Optional: Editorials, opinion pieces, and narrative reviews are not subject to a data-sharing requirement.

Mandatory Data Availability Statement

Every original-research article must contain a Data Availability Statement, placed immediately before the References section. The statement must follow one of the six standardized forms below:

  • Publicly available — "The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at [DOI/URL], reference number [identifier]."
  • Available on request — "The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [name], upon reasonable request."
  • Available with restrictions — "The data that support the findings of this study are available from [holder], but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study and so are not publicly available."
  • Not publicly available for ethical reasons — "The data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available because they contain information that could compromise the privacy of research participants."
  • All data in the article — "All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article (and its supplementary information files)."
  • Not applicable — "Data sharing is not applicable to this article because no new data were created or analyzed in this study."

Acceptable Exemptions from Sharing

  • Risk of re-identification of participants, especially in studies of rare conditions, small populations, or vulnerable groups;
  • Legal or regulatory restrictions imposed by the institution, the funder, or national law;
  • Commercial confidentiality, where the data are owned by an industry sponsor and a contract restricts release;
  • Cultural or community-based restrictions on dissemination, where these are recognized by an ethics committee.

Acceptable Repositories

A repository is acceptable to LJD if it meets all of the following criteria:

  • Trustworthy, established, and stable — ideally listed in re3data.org or certified by CoreTrustSeal;
  • Assigns a persistent identifier (preferably a DOI) to each deposit;
  • Supports machine-readable metadata in a recognized schema (DataCite, Dublin Core, schema.org);
  • Provides clear terms governing access, reuse, and licensing of deposited data;
  • Has a documented preservation and back-up policy;
  • Open-access by default, or operates a transparent and timely access-request procedure.

Citation of Datasets

Datasets are intellectual products that deserve the same recognition as journal articles. LJD therefore requires that any dataset on which the conclusions of an article depend — whether generated by the authors or reused from another source — be formally cited.

Dataset references in LJD follow the Vancouver style, adapted by DataCite:

Author(s). Title of the dataset [data set]. Version. Publisher / Repository; Year. DOI or URL.

Long-term Commitment

When authors deposit data in a repository in association with an article published by LJD, they accept a commitment to keep the data accessible for at least ten years after publication, subject to the policy of the repository chosen.

Software and Code

Where the conclusions of an article depend on a specific piece of software or analytical code, the software should be cited in the same form as a dataset, using its DOI (for example, the Zenodo DOI assigned by GitHub integration) or, in the absence of a DOI, a versioned release URL.