Peer-reviewing data & software: Pilot Project and Guidelines

In late 2021, the Research Data Services and TU Delft OPEN Publishing teams (both based at the TU Delft Library) discussed a potential initiative towards promoting data peer review within TU Delft. The project stemmed from identifying gaps in the research and peer review process, namely – the lack of recognition of data as a valuable research output in itself, and how to introduce incentives that could encourage both the publication and peer review of datasets by researchers. As academic outputs become increasingly diverse, with datasets and data description papers becoming common research outputs, peer review too must expand beyond the review of articles and books.

As software increasingly becomes a common research output, the present pilot project considered both data and software within the purview of innovations in peer review. The current iteration of the pilot project is a collaboration between the present RDS team and TU Delft Open Publishing, funded by the TU Delft Open Science programme. The pilot ran for the duration of 1 year, from April 2023-March 2024, as an Innovation project housed in the RDS team. 

The report on the Pilot Project and the related guidelines are now published.