Software and code sharing

Requirements for Sharing Software and Code

In manuscript submissions where Author-generated code is a critical component of the research, Authors are required to make the code available for review upon publication of the manuscript. Authors are responsible for ensuring that the code is accessible, documented, easy to run, and reusable.

• Software and code developed by Authors must conform to Open-Source standards licenses.
• Code must be stored and be available on repositories (for example GitHub, GitLab).
• The code should be easy to locate and download, ideally without needing readers to create user accounts, log in, or enter personal details.
• Where applicable, Authors are encouraged to use open-source applications or platforms that are commonly available to the readers, for example, MATLAB. Whilst the use of commercial software is permitted, Authors must ensure readers do not need to subscribe, pay, or give away personal information to access, test, and use the Author-generated code. Manuscripts will not be eligible for publication if running the software depends on unobtainable ancillary software.
• Instructions for installing and using the software and code are required including instructions for accessing software libraries used by Authors to generate and develop the software or code.
• Authors are required to make accessible the datasets needed for the software to produce results in the appropriate formats. Manuscripts will not be eligible for publication if running the software depends on access to databases or other resources whose persistence is not guaranteed.
• Authors must provide details on how to access code, and datasets used for the research, within the Supporting Information section of the manuscript.
• If Authors used AI to generate code that is used in the submission, then they are required to disclose the use of AI technology within the Methods sections. Authors can also use the Acknowledgements section if a Method section is not available in the manuscript. If proper attribution is not made, ScienceBank reserves the right to reject or withdraw the publishing of a manuscript.

Authors must provide the relevant information and instructions as part of the Supporting Information section.

Software manuscripts will not be considered for publication if the above guidelines are not met. If Authors have concerns about meeting these requirements, they must contact ScienceBank before submission.