Springer Nature’s research data policy strongly encourages authors to deposit their supporting data in publicly available repositories. For more information about making your research data openly accessible, see our guidance and support page.
CC0 Data Policy
In addition to Springer Nature’s research data policy, some journals also follow a CC0 Data policy, and the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver applies to all published data in these journals. Please see the Submission Guidelines of the specific journal page for information on whether the CC0 Data policy applies.
What content does the CC0 data policy apply to?
For journals following a CC0 Data policy, the Creative Commons CC0 waiver applies, unless otherwise stated, to data within the published article. There are a number of file types which obviously pertain to data but comprehensively defining them is not currently feasible. The table below is a guide for those seeking definitions of data.
Table: Examples of data published in journal articles and their additional files | |
File/content type | Explanation |
Material submitted as additional files | |
XML | XML is a widely used standard for data transfer in science, with many domain specific extensions forming data standards and exchange formats, such as Gating-ML in flow cytometry experiments. |
CSV | CSV is an open file format used commonly for data tables and spreadsheets. |
XLS/XLSX | XLS is a proprietary spreadsheet file format which opens with Microsoft Excel, but is widely available and used for publishing scientific data. |
RDF | Resource Description Framework (RDF) is the standard language for encoding data and metadata on the web. |
Material contained within the full text of papers | |
Tables | Individual data elements, predominantly numbers, organized in columns and rows are a representation of facts and should be considered data. |
Bibliographic data | Factual information which identifies a scientific publication including authors, titles, publication date and identifiers should be considered data. Applies to individual articles and their reference lists. |
Graphs and graphical data points | Software can harvest data points underlying graphs and charts, and graphs and other figures are often visual representations of data. |
Frequency of specific words, names and phrases in article text and their association to others | This information is frequently identified through text mining, for example the frequency of particular gene and protein names and their potential associations with one another. |
What if authors are not allowed, by their funders or employers, to use CC0 for any of their published work?
Where legitimate reasons exist for authors to be unable to apply CC0 to their published data, it is possible to opt out and use a non-standard license. This process already happens in journal publishing. Commonly figures, tables or charts are reproduced, with permission, in journal articles from sources which are licensed differently to the secondary publisher’s terms – and statements to this effect included in articles. When submitting work to journals authors should read the publisher’s standard copyright and license agreement and, if they cannot agree to the terms, query these before submission or publication. Some scientists funded by the World Health Organization, UK Government, and US Government already have agreements with publishers to use a non-standard copyright statement in their open access articles.