Standards Development

Scope

This document describes the components of a data paper, as well as the presentation requirements for its writing and arrangement. This document is applicable to data papers in all forms of dissemination, including print, microform and electronic versions.

Purpose

1. Purpose

The purpose of this document is to establish a unified, internationally recognized framework for the identification, structure, presentation, and bibliographic description of data papers as a distinct genre of academic paper. It aims to:

a) Define and Differentiate

b) Standardize Structure and Content

c) Enhance Discoverability and Interoperability

d) Support Quality Assurance and Recognition

2. Necessity

(1) Stakeholder Feedback and Market Needs

Feedback was collected from a diverse cross-section of the international research and publishing ecosystem, including: Disciplinary communities, University libraries and data repositories, Academic publishers, Research funding organisations, Research evaluators.

The feedback from international stakeholders confirms a clear market need for this standardization project.

(2) Problems this document will solve

The scholarly communication ecosystem currently faces a structural gap: datasets are critical research outputs, but there is no standardized document type dedicated to describing them. This creates three specific problems that this document aims to solve:

a) Recognition

b) Discovery and reuse

c) Quality assurance

3. Gap analysis

(1) Conflicts to ISO standards

a) This document does not duplicate any part of existing ISO projects nor related standards such as ISO 7144, ISO 690, ISO 15836, etc.

b) This document addresses a gap in the existing landscape of document presentation standards, complementing rather than conflicting with current ISO and other standards.

(2) Overlap from national standards.

This document fully reflects the global industry consensus rather than being a direct translation of the Chinese national standard documents, even though SAC has already started the work at the national level. Currently, there is no more national standard from other countries exists that use the "Data Paper" or similar concepts as a document title.

4. Value

(1) Impact Assessment

a) Economic impact: Harmonization of conflicting guidance, Support for the scholarly publishing industry

b) Social and scientific impact: Reproducibility and trust, Career recognition for data professionals Environmental impact: Indirect positive impact.

(2) Value the document will bring to end-user 

a) This document is designed to deliver tangible value to every actor in the research ecosystem.

b) The end-user includes: authors, readers, journal editors and publishers, libraries and data repositories, research funders and evaluators, industry and commercial users in sectors relying on scientific data.

c) The potential benefits (harmonizing publishing practices, supporting Open Science policies, and providing career credit for data creators) significantly outweigh the risks of market confusion.

5. Basis

(1) Resolutions of ISO/TC46 meeting (May 2025): Resolution 2025/09 - New area of work - Data Papers: TC 46 resolves to Encourage SAC representatives to work with the leadership of ISO TC 46/SC 4 and ISO TC 46/SC 9 to develop and submit two new work item proposals on the topic of data papers based on the new SAC national standard for data papers.

(2) Progress made on the basis of the draft proposal (October 2025) following the Resolution of TC46 Following a meeting between Chinese colleagues and the chairpersons of ISO/TC46/SC4 and SO/TC46/SC9 at the end of October 2025, the possibility to create a joint working group to develop the standards for data papers has been established.

(3) Basis on national standards from China

SAC strongly supports the progression of this work item as the two proposals were based on two Chinese national standards

Detailed materials are attached as Annex 1.