Open Science Policy

ICSME encourages open science. Sharing of data sets, replication packages, or preprints is expected to be the default, and non-sharing needs to be justified, for example, in the case of industry data subject to confidentiality issues or legal requirements.

However, PC members are not required to run code and check details of the artifact, but are asked to comment on its inclusion (specifically, whether the data/code promised in the paper is available in the artifact).

Upon submission, authors should do one of the following:

1. make their data available to the program committee via an online archival (see below),
2. include in the paper an explanation as to why this is not possible or desirable, or
3. indicate that they intend to make their data publicly available upon acceptance.

Note that, even if not intentional, the last option can create doubt in reviewers’ minds as to why the data is not made available for review. Accordingly, we strongly encourage following one of the first two options.

When sharing data, please use an online archival site such as zenodo.org, figshare.com, or osf.io. These sites ensure that the content is archived and they generate a DOI for the content, enabling it to be cited. To learn more about how to share data while maintaining double-anonymous, you may refer to the guidelines provided by Daniel Graziotin.

We recognize that anonymizing artifacts such as source code is more difficult than preserving anonymity in a paper. We ask authors to take a best-effort approach to not reveal their identities. We will also ask reviewers to avoid trying to identify authors by looking at commit histories and other such information that is not easily anonymized. Authors wanting to share GitHub repositories may want to look into using https://anonymous.4open.science, which is an open-source tool that helps you quickly double-anonymize your repository.

ICSME supports and encourages Green Open Access (also called self-archiving). We encourage authors to self-archive a preprint of their accepted manuscript in an e-print server such as arXiv.org. Open access increases the availability of your work and increases citation impact. To learn more about open access, please read the Green Open Access FAQ by Arie van Deursen.

We recommend that you archive your paper (e.g., on arXiv or on your website) only after the ICSME reviewing process is completed, to avoid undermining the double-anonymous reviewing process.