Research Data Policy

1. Purpose

This policy governs data availability, data retention, reproducibility, transparency, ethical restrictions, code sharing and responsible use of research data in manuscripts submitted to Ho Chi Minh City Open University Journal of Science (HCMCOUJS).

2. Data Availability Statement

Authors should provide a Data Availability Statement where applicable.

This statement should indicate:

  1. whether data are available;
  2. where data are stored;
  3. access conditions;
  4. restrictions;
  5. reason for non-disclosure;
  6. availability of code, questionnaires, protocols or supplementary materials.

The current HCMCOUJS ethics policy already requires authors to clearly state whether data, code, appendices, or supplementary materials are available, where they are deposited, the conditions of access, and the reasons for non-sharing where applicable.

3. Data Retention

Authors are responsible for retaining original data, survey instruments, code, lab records, ethics approval documents and related materials for a reasonable period after publication.

The ethics draft already states that authors must retain data sufficient to verify research results and provide data upon reasonable request or explain why data cannot be provided.

4. Restricted Data

Data may be restricted when disclosure would violate:

  • privacy;
  • confidentiality;
  • commercial secrecy;
  • legal obligations;
  • research ethics approval;
  • national security or public safety;
  • third-party licensing terms.

5. Human Participants and Sensitive Data

For research involving human participants, personal data or sensitive information, authors must comply with:

  1. ethics approval requirements;
  2. informed consent;
  3. anonymization or pseudonymization;
  4. privacy protection;
  5. data minimization;
  6. secure storage.

6. Secondary Data, AI and Digital Sources

When using secondary data, digital traces, social media data, AI-generated data or publicly available datasets, authors must respect:

  1. licensing terms;
  2. privacy expectations;
  3. platform terms of use;
  4. intellectual property rights;
  5. ethical approval requirements;
  6. data provenance and transparency.

The ethics draft already requires secondary data use to respect licensing, privacy, intellectual property and terms of use.

7. Code Availability

Where code is essential to verifying the findings, authors should make code available where legally and ethically possible.

8. Data Misconduct

Data misconduct includes:

  • fabrication;
  • falsification;
  • selective reporting;
  • cherry-picking;
  • image manipulation;
  • unverifiable data;
  • unauthorized reuse;
  • undisclosed synthetic data;
  • AI-generated fake data.

Possible actions include request for data, correction, expression of concern, rejection or retraction.

9. Related Policies

This policy shall be interpreted together with:

Policy Information

Item

Content

Policy Owner

HCMCOUJS Editorial Council

Approved by

Editor-in-Chief and HCMCOUJS Editorial Council

Version

3.0

Effective Date

May 2026

Review Cycle

Annual