We are committed that the published articles at RAC are citable, recognizable, transparent, reproducible (when appropriate and possible), and recognized as intellectual products of high value and quality. We are also committed to making the research data of RAC’s published articles FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). For that, we are committed to Open Science practices. In these guidelines, we present our policy for these practices, which, for us, include:

1. Open Access

2. Open Data

3. Open Materials

4. Open Education

5. Open Peer-Review

6. Preprints

 

RAC’s general guidelines in compliance with Open Science:

- Authors must follow all submission guidelines described in the document “Guidelines for Publication”.

- Authors must fill out the Open Science Statement, which must be pasted to the end of the Cover Letter.

- Authors must comply to share the research data (whenever possible) following the specificities of Table 1.

- It is mandatory that authors inform: (1) whether the data has been used in a previously published article or preprint (sharing the associated DOI number), and (2) whether the authors intend to use the same data in future studies (in such case, authors must commit to citing RAC’s published article in the future studies).

- We encourage the reuse of data. Authors must cite the original study and the DOI of the data reused. Reused data must be stored in an open repository and be used in a previously published article.

- We accept preprint articles when they are stored in trustful counterparts, such as Scielo Preprints, SSRN, and OSF.

- We encourage Open Peer-Review. RAC invites reviewers to allow including their identification in the final version of all published articles under double anonymized review.

- RAC also encourages the practice of reports sharing (Open Reports). RAC invites all reviewers to allow sharing the content of their reports alongside the published article.

 

Open Data, Open Code, and Open Materials

Since July 2018, RAC encourages authors to share their research data and materials. Authors must follow the guidelines in Table 1.

 

Quantitative Research:

To assure the reproducibility of functional-positivist research, since issue 22(4), published in July 2018, the manuscripts accepted in the Journal of Contemporary Administration (Revista de Administração Contemporânea, RAC) have been able to receive up to two icons, in addition to the open access icon, in recognition of open science practices. These include an open data badge and an open materials badge. The attribution of one or more of these badges recognizing the open practices is conditioned to the provision of information by the authors. Such information consists of the complete references, containing URL and DOI code, for the data and/or materials deposited in a public repository. These icons appear in the beginning part of the published document, and information about open practices is published in a note that appears at the end of the article just after the reference list. The icons are granted following the disclosure method, in which the authors provide public information, indicating that they comply with the criteria for assigning these icons to their paper published in RAC.

Open Data Icon: The authors of the paper provide a URL, DOI, or another permanent path that allows unrestricted access to the data in a public open-source repository (such as Mendeley or Zenodo). Since July 2018, the journal has strongly encouraged authors to make all data associated with their submission openly available, according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). If data is not being made available with the journal publication, then a statement from the author should be provided within the submission to explain why. Data obtained from other sources must be appropriately credited. If research includes the use of software code, statistical analysis, or algorithms then we also recommend that authors upload the code into Code Ocean, where it will be hosted on an open, cloud-based computational reproducibility platform, providing researchers and developers with an easy way to share, validate and discover code published in academic journals.

Open Materials Icon: The authors of the paper provide a URL, DOI, or another permanent path to access the materials in a public open access repository. In addition, the authors also provide sufficient information for an interested person to be able to reproduce the reported methodology. As the traditional Materials and Methods section often includes insufficient detail for readers to wholly assess the research process, the journal encourages authors to publish detailed descriptions of their structured methods in open, online platforms such as protocols.io. By providing a step-by-step explanation of the methods used in the study, the chance of reproducibility and usability increases, whilst also allowing authors to build on their own works and gain additional credit and citations.

In particular cases in which authors choose not to provide data and/or materials used in their surveys, an explanatory note of that decision should be presented in the final parts of the published document.

 

Qualitative Research

We acknowledge that Open Data practices are more challenging in qualitative than quantitative research. With these challenges in mind, we provide a shortlist of items authors can use before (a) submitting their qualitative research article and (b) reusing qualitative data from previously published articles.

 

For authors submitting a qualitative research article

- Make sure you describe all procedures for data collection/construction in the article’s main text or in an appendix (if necessary);

-  In researches involving the participation of human beings, the authors must have the “Informed Consent Form” filled and signed by the research participants, and provide it confidentially to the editors when requested (it will not be disclosed publically).

- We encourage researchers to seek permission from research participants so that study data may be published under the license CC 1.0 "Public Domain Dedication" so that they are open for academic use and for future research. Thus, authors can make the data public as long as they are free of personal identifiers or any element that allows a deductive link with specific participants;

- Present (when necessary) any applicable confidentiality protocol in an appendix.

 

For authors reusing qualitative data from previously published articles

. Report explicitly the purpose of the original article and the procedures used throughout data collection. Implying that “the original article explains data collection/construction” is not enough. Readers and reviewers must be able to judge and make informed decisions about the procedures without necessarily accessing the original article;

. Acknowledge that the original data may not have been collected to answer the same research question; thus, authors need to explain the differences between articles in data usage;

. Acknowledge that authors do not have the benefit of the contextual experience in collecting/constructing the data;

. Make sure you can rely on the original researchers to have followed the procedures described in the original article;

. Report any inconsistency between the original article’s data description and the dataset;

. Report consistently the original article’s situational context and how the original authors build knowledge using the data;

. Report the role (if any) the data reuse researcher had in the data collection and the original research.

 

RAC will not accept articles with reused qualitative data that:

- Does not appropriately use the original data or use it out of context;

- Does not provide a research protocol containing all analysis in the original dataset;

- Lacks transparency (of any aspect) about the original research.

 

References:

Chauvette, A., Schick-Makaroff, K., & Molzahn, A. E. (2019). Open data in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406918823863

Poth, C. N. (2019). Rigorous and ethical qualitative data reuse: Potential perils and promising practices. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919868870

 

Table 1. Guidelines for sharing quantitative and qualitative data.

Type of data/or type of study	Examples	RAC’s call for the author’s action
Primary quantitative data	Data generated originally by authors, such as surveys, questionnaires, interviews, etc.	Mandatory sharing
Secondary quantitative data	World bank, Ipeadata, Government data, etc.	Mandatory sharing
Reused quantitative and qualitative data	Data published in public depositories, such as Harvard Dataverse, Mendeley data, etc.	Mandatory citing
Experimental data	Laboratory experiments, etc.	Mandatory sharing
Codes and Research protocols	Scripts, codes, interviews designs, structured data collection, computer programs or functions,  etc.	Mandatory sharing
Simulation	Data generated within a code or research protocol	Mandatory sharing
Property data	Data collected from databases, such as Economática, Compustat, and similar	Comply sharing or explain why cannot share. If authors do not have legal rights over the collected data, authors must: 1. Present a code with the command to download the data from the original source, if possible; 2. Present a table containing the name/title of the variable/data as defined by the original source. No changed names are accepted; and, 3. Commit to supporting editors and reviewers' attempts to replicate results
Primary Qualitative Data	Ethnographies, case studies, interviews, participant observations, etc.	Comply with sharing or explain why you cannot share. In case of not sharing, observe the following requirements: 1.    Put all interview and observation scripts as an appendix to the article along with the justification for not sharing; 2.    Data used in the research may be requested by editors or reviewers during the review process, but without further public disclosure.
Secondary qualitative data	Documentary research	1. Public data: mandatory sharing; 2. Private non-shareable data: mention the origin of the data and provide the justification for not sharing. 2.1. Data used in the survey may be requested by editors or reviewers during the review process, but without further public disclosure.
Theoretical essays		No data sharing is required. Authors must inform it in the Open Science Statement.

 

 

Open Education

Open education refers to the open and free availability of educational resources. RAC supports Open Education practices and has implemented its own initiative: the sections on methodological articles and cases for teaching. We believe that Open Education brings science and technology to everyone, regardless of social class and the involvement of institutions. We encourage authors to learn more about our methodological articles and cases for teaching initiatives.

 

Open Peer Review

RAC, in line with Open Science practices, in January/2020 started to encourage reviewers to join the Open Peer Review, in which the journal publishes, on the title page of each article, information about the editors and reviewers who contributed to the peer review process for each article. After the article they reviewed is accepted for publication, reviewers and editors are invited to authorize to reveal their identities. Since August/2020, RAC fosters the practice of reports sharing (Open Reports) with the permission of editors and reviewers.

As of August 07, 2020, new submissions for RAC must comply with the following policies for Open Peer Review.

 

Open Reports

As of August 2020 (issue v. 25, n. 2), RAC started to publish, alongside the article, the peer-review reports containing the reviewers’ comments and authors’ responses. Such content is published upon the reviewers’ authorization to disclose their reports and identities.

The Peer Review Report is available on the article’s page level on the journal’s website, via a button of the same name, which will redirect readers to the report in a Zenodo document. Such document is authored by the authors and reviewers, with a unique DOI. The content of the Peer Review Report is the full copy of the reviewers' and authors' reports. Typing and punctuation errors will not be edited. Only comments that violate the journal’s ethical policies such as derogatory or defamatory comments will be edited (omitted) from the report. In these cases, it will be clearly stated that parts of the report were edited. Up to 90 days after the Peer Review Report is published, authors and reviewers may request corrections in their reports only if the identified error differs from the content of the original report.

 

For authors:

All authors must allow the publication of all reports’ replies. That is, the authors’ responses to the editors and reviewers during the submission evaluation process.

In the submission, authors must allow the publication of all reports’ replies by sending, alongside the submission, the filled Open Science Statement, which must be pasted to the end of the Cover Letter. 

 

For reviewers and editors:

RAC invites reviewers and editors to allow:

(1) including their identification in the final version of all published articles under double anonymized review; or,

(2) including their identification in the final version of all published articles under double anonymized review AND the content of their reports, which will be shared alongside the published article.

 

Preprints

The Journal of Contemporary Administration (RAC) accepts the submission of preprint articles when they are stored in trustful counterparts, such as Scielo Preprints, SSRN, and OSF.

In the submission, authors must inform whether their article was submitted to a preprint server by sending alongside submission the filled Open Science Statement, which must be pasted to the end of the Cover Letter.