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Access & preservation: lasting, citable materials

Access describes how others can obtain your materials; preservation keeps them available after the paper. Both sit beside the level, with license, citation and journal policy.

Last updated

Access conditions describe your materials. They never raise or lower the level.
Level relationshipSeparate from the level

A repository can be renamed, rewritten or deleted after publication. Journals ask for durable copies: PLOS Computational Biology recommends depositing code in a repository that issues DOIs. RepoReady reports the access conditions it finds; it does not verify archives yet. Journal policy and good-practice findings are Warnings: they never change the level.

Access conditions

What counts
Each dataset and tool says how it can be obtained: openly, after registration, through a data access committee, by purchase or under license.
Common gaps
“Available on request” with no route, or private data with no word on who may use them.
How to fix
State the route per item in the README. Public hosting, controlled access and private access are reported separately.

A lasting archive

What counts
Code and data sit in an archive that issues persistent identifiers, such as Zenodo, figshare, Software Heritage or a domain repository.
Common gaps
A GitHub repository alone, or a DOI that points to the newest version instead of the one in the paper.
How to fix
Connect the repository to Zenodo, so each GitHub release gets its own version DOI, and cite that version DOI.

Journal policy

What counts
What journals ask for beyond the level: a software license, a citation file that names the paper, source data for every figure and a code availability statement.
Common gaps
No license or only CC-BY on code, a dependency license that forbids reuse, no citation file, or empty, incomplete or duplicated source data.
How to fix
Deposit one source data file per figure, use our statement template, and add a license (without one, nobody may reuse the code) and a citation file:
CITATION.cff
cff-version: 1.2.0
message: "If you use this code, please cite the paper below."
title: "Code for: <paper title>"
version: "v1.0-paper"
doi: "<version DOI from Zenodo>"
license: MIT
authors:
  - family-names: "<Family>"
    given-names: "<Given>"
preferred-citation:
  type: article
  title: "<paper title>"
  authors:
    - family-names: "<Family>"
      given-names: "<Given>"
  doi: "<paper DOI>"

Good practice

What counts
Advice beyond the levels, every finding a Warning: a tidy repository, tests, notebooks run in order, stated hardware and tools, and a paper that agrees with itself.
Common gaps
Junk or duplicate files, no tests, notebooks saved out of order, unstated GPU needs, commercial-only steps, or code older than the paper.
How to fix
Each Warning names the file or passage. The guides show fixes for a tidy repository, tests and notebooks and a consistent paper.

See where your project stands

Run the analysis on your paper or repository. Every finding names its area and links back here.

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