Vadose Zone Journal Data Article Guidelines

Guidelines for Authors

Articles designated as Data Articles in Vadose Zone Journal (VZJ) include supplemental computer code and data that permit readers to analyze the data in a manner similar to that presented in the article, and reproduce all results from the article. The purpose of Data Articles is to provide a means for verifying the correctness of results presented in published articles, and for building on results in future research and applications.

Data Articles comprise two parts: a standard VZJ article and a supplemental file archive containing code, data, and metadata, the latter including information on the content and licensing of the data file archive.   

Data Articles submitted to VZJ are reviewed under the same conditions as regular articles. Any type of VZJ article (e.g., original articles, technical notes, reviews, comments or letters to the editor, rapid communications) featuring data and/or computational analyses can be submitted, reviewed, and published as a Data Article. Analyses and data do not have to be complex (although they can be). The only requirement is that code and data underlying the article be included as part of the publication. 

General Requirements

Data Articles are standard VZJ articles plus a data file archive. The basic requirements for Data Articles in terms of content and quality are the same as for other VZJ articles. Data file archives are reviewed to ensure the archive is readable and understandable and that code is technically sound and can be used to reproduce key results from the paper.

Submission Process

All VZJ articles are submitted via VZJ’s manuscript submission site. During the submission process, authors are asked if the submission is intended to be designated as a Data Article. If the submission is a Data Article, then authors will upload the data archive as supplemental material along with the article. 

If an author selects Data Article without uploading a data archive, an associate editor will work with the author on preparing a data file archive, to be uploaded at the time of manuscript revision.  The article peer review will proceed separately, independent of data archive preparation. The goal is to permit authors unfamiliar with the Data Article program to participate without any delay in the review process.  

The Data File Archive

All data archives must contain in the highest level directory the file “README.md”, which contains information on: creator(s)/author(s), year, title, version (if applicable), name/location of external repository (if applicable), description of archive and files, licensing information, citation information, and instructions for use.  

The user should have open access to the archive. Only files that the authors are legally entitled to redistribute can be included in the archive. We encourage but do not require the use of open file formats and computing tools/platforms/languages (Python, R, Julia, GNU Octave, Jupyter Notebooks, etc.). 

The data archive should be stored on an external, publicly accessible repository (institutional repositories or another acceptable repository such as Dryad or github). In the case of an external repository, the editor may ask for additional supplemental material to be published with the article that includes at a minimum the README.md file, which has a standardized format and content structure across all data archives, and contains various metadata and information about the file archive.

Publication Charges

Standard VZJ publication charges for these papers apply. Additional charges may apply depending on the size of the data archive (contact the managing editor for the current pricing schedule).

Guidelines for Reviewers

Data Articles are reviewed for scientific merit in the same manner as other VZJ submissions. Additionally, the data file archive is reviewed to verify that the archive is readable and understandable, and that code is technically sound and can be used to reproduce all results from the paper.