ASAP’s Open Science Policy
There are five key components to ASAP’s Open Science Policy:
- Share research outputs. Data, code, and protocols generated as part of an ASAP-funded study must be deposited in a discipline-specific, community-recognized repository by the time of publication, with information to facilitate reuse and a license that allows for reuse. Key lab materials generated as part of an ASAP-funded study must be registered by the time of publication.
- Identify research inputs. Data, software, protocols, and key lab materials used in a study–but which were not generated as part of an ASAP-funded study–must be unambiguously identified in the study’s publication.
- Ensure immediate open access. Preprints must be posted no later than the date a manuscript is submitted to a journal. Preprints and publications must be immediately publicly available with a CC-BY or CC0 license and include an Availability Statement outlining where all research outputs (Requirement 1) and research inputs (Requirement 2) can be accessed.
- Acknowledge ASAP. Manuscripts and other research outputs that were partially or fully funded by ASAP must acknowledge ASAP. Manuscripts must include an ORCID and ASAP affiliation for all authors who received funding from ASAP.
- Share outputs with the ASAP network. All ASAP-funded research outputs, including manuscripts, must be shared on the ASAP grantee virtual platform, no later than the time of publication. Manuscript drafts must be sent to the ASAP Open Science Team no later than the time of preprint.
As a sign of our commitment to supporting best practices for open science, researcher compliance with the ASAP Open Science Policy is factored into decision-making when considering funding support.
Click below to see answers to some of the most common questions about our Open Science policy:
ASAP funds are project-based, meaning they are given to each team based on the work that was proposed. ASAP-funded work includes:
- Projects that are listed in the ASAP-funded proposal
- Methods or resource papers that enable the ASAP-funded proposal
- Pivots stemming from the findings of the original ASAP-funded proposal
- Thought leadership pieces (reviews, communications, letters) on the topic that the ASAP-funded proposal aims to address
If you have any questions about what constitutes ASAP-funded work, please contact the Open Science Team at [email protected].
All manuscripts and outputs resulting from partial or full support by ASAP — either during the award, or after the funding period has ended — must be credited in the acknowledgments section of the publication or other research output, such as data, code & software, protocol, or lab material. If there is not a specified place for Acknowledgements, use the notes or detail area of the record:
This research was funded in whole [replace with or “in part” if appropriate] by Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s [insert Grant number] through the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF).
Preprints, which are early versions of research manuscripts that have yet to be formally peer-reviewed, must be submitted to a public preprint server – such as bioRxiv, medRxiv, or an institutional repository – no later than the time of article submission to a journal for review. Preprints must carry a CC BY 4.0 or CC0 license, and where possible, research outputs and inputs should already be linked to the manuscript. As your manuscript changes, we recommend versioning the preprint.
Publish in a journal that offers immediate open access of the final edited version of the journal article (known as the version of record [VoR]) without embargo and accepts a CC BY 4.0 or CC0. Use the Sherpa tool to verify a journal’s open access status.
If you publish in a subscription-only journal or a journal that does not accept the CC BY 4.0 license, contact ASAP at [email protected] to learn about alternate open access options. Please note that ASAP will not cover the article processing charges (APC) associated with publishing if this method is chosen.
If other funders of a multi-funded grant (which ASAP also partially supports) are concerned about adhering to our policy, ASAP will engage in discussion with the other funder(s) to understand their concerns. Contact us at [email protected] to initiate discussion. Grantee compliance with our Open Science Policy will be monitored vigilantly so we urge such discussion prior to publication when there are contravening circumstances.
The journal impact factor (JIF) of the journal or publisher has no bearing on our funding decisions. Rather, we will consider the intrinsic merit of the work, along with the adherence to our open science policies. This is in line with the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), of which we are a signatory.
You must apply a CC BY 4.0 or CC0 Creative Commons (CC) Attribution license to all preprints and publications. Licenses specify the legal bounds of reuse, a key principle of Open Science. Below are the types of licenses that are compliant with ASAP’s open access requirement:
- CC BY 4.0 is the recommended license for all research papers. The license ensures that you receive attribution for the work (intellectual ownership) but allows your work to be freely shared (redistributed in any medium or format or adapted for future purposes).
- CC0 is also permitted. This license may be used by authors employed by the government or for other content in the public domain. Under this license, no attribution is required.
- Please note that “ND”, “NC”, and “SA” modifiers of the CC BY license are not permitted. These licenses are not open access licenses, as they do not permit adapting, transforming, translating, or updating the work in any way. For more on why we do not allow non-commercial licensing, please read the rationale from cOAlition S under the header “Licenses.”
In the rare event that there is disagreement with the publisher regarding the licensing requirement and immediate online access requirement, contact ASAP at [email protected] to assist. We will only consider licenses other than CC BY 4.0 and CC0 on a case-by-case basis.
To ensure appropriate licensing, you must:
- Include language that your submission carries a CC BY 4.0 or CC0 public copyright license in the Acknowledgment section of your submitted manuscript (to both the preprint server and the publisher). See the “Acknowledgements” section of the policy for required language.
- Determine whether the journal will include the CC BY 4.0 or CC0 license in the published VoR (the final version of record published by the journal). Journals typically list the license terms of an article under a rights and permissions or a copyright tab. If you cannot find this information, you can also send an email to the publisher.
- If the preprint server or journal has the appropriate licensing, and the article is being published in an open access journal, do nothing. The journal will submit your article to PubMed Central (PMC) or Europe PMC upon publication.
- If the preprint server or journal does not have the appropriate licensing, and/or if the journal is subscription-only, select another preprint or publication venue such as your institutional repository. Please contact [email protected] for assistance if needed.
To assist with compliance, ASAP will pay reasonable Article Processing Charges (APCs) for open access research articles. In order to be eligible for APC coverage, the manuscript must be 100% compliant with ASAP’s Open Science Policy.
ASAP works with our implementation partner, The Michael J Fox Foundation (MJFF), to provide coverage for APCs, when applicable. To apply for coverage, grantees must complete a submission form.
In addition to ensuring open access to preprints and published manuscripts, ASAP’s Open Science policy requires that research outputs (resources newly generated by experiments described in the article) and research inputs (pre-existing resources used in research experiments) are properly referenced no later than the time of publication.
Referencing Research Outputs
Research outputs, including data, code & software, and protocols, generated as part of an ASAP-funded study must be deposited in recognized community repositories no later than the time of publication. Generated lab materials must be registered by the time of publication.
Associated metadata necessary to understand, assess, and reproduce the reported study findings (excluding protected health information) must also be shared.
Referencing Research Inputs
Data, software, protocols, and lab materials used in a study–but which were not generated as part of an ASAP-funded study–must be unambiguously identified in the publication. Research inputs could include data, code & software, protocols, tools, organisms, and reagents used in prior publications.
How to Reference Research Outputs & Inputs in a Manuscript
Citing research outputs and inputs is best practice, including data availability policies required by several publishers. We require that a key resource table be incorporated in any ASAP-supported manuscript, to highlight the research outputs and inputs that were generated in and utilized for a study.
Please note that ASAP endorses the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship that were published in Scientific Data in 2016. These guidelines are intended to improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets.
Core FAIR principles, as they pertain to ASAP-funded research, include:
- All relevant dataset files are described by adequate metadata.
- All datasets are assigned a globally unique and persistent identifier that is included in the core metadata.
- The persistent identifier and adequate metadata are registered or indexed in a reliable, searchable resource.
- ASAP Acknowledgements are included in the repository record.
Data: There are many data repositories in which ASAP-funded work can be deposited. Use the Data Repositories Wiki to see recommended repositories for your data or investigate whether your data is eligible for deposit with your institutional repository. Please note that any data repository of your choosing must adhere to the following:
- Enable immediate open access to the underlying data upon posting your preprint and submission of your manuscript to a journal
- Allow reuse with licensing no more restrictive than Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0)
- Assign your dataset with a persistent and unique identifier, such as a DOI (digital object identifier) or Accession number to facilitate linking and citation
- Provide long-term storage and preservation, such as those that meet the ISO’s trustworthy digital repository standards
We will work with teams to identify the appropriate platforms. For questions about recommended repositories, please email [email protected].
Code/Software: Software, including algorithms, scripts, and other code used in study-based research outputs, must be made available through code repositories like GitHub and assigned a DOI. If it is difficult or impossible to assign a DOI through the code repository, Zenodo can be used to also assign a DOI to code hosted elsewhere.
Protocols: Experimental protocols that are employed in published ASAP-funded research must be made publicly available (and updated as needed) through a protocol-sharing service such as protocols.io. ASAP will provide support to grantees in using the protocols.io platform.
Lab Materials: All tools or reagents, including cell lines, transgenic models, plasmids/clones, and antibodies, that are funded by ASAP must be made readily available to the community and citable as a means of supporting reproducibility and enabling further research. For questions about recommended repositories, please email [email protected].
For assistance with citing lab materials, take a look at the Resource Identification Portal which aggregates information from multiple repositories and provides identifiers for citation in publications.
Any current or prior member of your team, as indicated on the Hub, who is an author on an ASAP-funded manuscript should include ASAP in their author affiliation.
For the ASAP Collaborative Research Network – In addition to an investigator’s home institution, an ASAP-specific affiliation should be designated as such: Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) Collaborative Research Network, Chevy Chase, MD, 20815.
All ASAP-affiliated authors must also include their ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor IDentifiers) in all ASAP-funded preprints and publications.
ASAP has developed a custom-built Research Outputs Management System (ROMS) to help grantees track research outputs and associated metadata. Our goal is to retain a catalog of where ASAP research outputs are located so that we can enhance access to resources generated within our Network for the entire research community. Usage of the ROMS will factor into future funding decisions. All public ASAP-generated outputs are also shared at www.parkinsonsroadmap.org/catalog.
Contact Us
If you have any questions, email [email protected].
Note, these policies will ultimately be housed in the ASAP Open Science Policy Handbook in perpetuity and will be referenced as such in the award contract. The handbook is a living document and will be updated accordingly.
