When I started at the Campbell Collaboration as editor in chief in 2017, I was excited to be a part of a community and journal with a commitment to open access articles that were both free to read and free to publish. And, I wrote about my enthusiasm for the opportunity for the Campbell Collaboration to pioneer more open science practices within our community. In my view, open data is like shining a light in a dark room, letting us know what is there, and, equally importantly, what is not there.
To date, the open science practices we have adopted include expecting data sharing (along with guidance on what data to share), transparent peer review and linkage to ORCID identifiers. We conducted an audit of our library to assess adherence to these practices in April 2025, led by Dr. Elizabeth Ghogomu, recently appointed as our quality improvement editor.
Let’s have a look at our results on data sharing. We looked at what was the uptake of our data availability in 2023, as a baseline. It was low: only 20% (13 out of 66) of articles providing these in 2023. In 2024, we implemented a question in our online submission process asking authors to provide a data availability statement. Since that implementation, 65% (43 out of 66) and 86% (19 out of 22) of our articles in 2024 and 2025, respectively, have included a data availability statement. Most state that data is available on request, while six indicate that data is available in a repository or in supplementary materials. For example, Birkenmeier et al 2024 provide all extracted data in supplementary materials. Furthermore, over 80% of our protocols have a data availability statement, which is a good sign that we will see more data availability statements in the future, since author teams are aware of the expectations.
In order to enhance the light on our reviews and continue our move to open data, we are planning further activities to promote and support data sharing. These include identifying a publishing partner for the future who is as committed to supporting open science practices as us. We have added data availability statements to all of our Campbell templates to raise awareness at submission. Eventually, we aim to move to mandating data sharing. We are also one of the facilitators of the global Evidence Synthesis Infrastructure Collaborative (ESIC) process, funded by Wellcome Trust. As such, we are co-creating guidance related to open science from the ESIC recommendations and plan to follow these to reduce waste and improve efficiencies in evidence synthesis.
We are currently analyzing uptake of transparent peer review, and will report on this in a future blog.
We welcome suggestions from you on how to improve and are committed to continuing monitoring and quality improvement of uptake of open science practices. Please get in touch with me if you are interested to learn more or join these initiatives.
– Vivian Welch, editor in chief, Campbell Collaboration
