This page contains information regarding submission and publication procedures relevant for all tracks. Please refer to the respective tabs for detailed information.

Data Availability Statement

All submissions have to include a section titled “Data Availability Statement” as the final section before the bibliography. The Data Availability Statement is not counted towards the page limit (except for research-track submissions). To solve the problem that PC members are often confused about the status of the availability of data, artifacts, or reproducibility packages, we require a Data Availability Statement (DAS) indicating which materials are made available to readers/reviewers and how (so far this was actively supported and encouraged, now we require it). If materials are published publicly, they need to be properly anonymized to not undermine double-blind peer review. We further demand that any publicly published materials are referenced via a DOI to ensure long-term accessibility. In principle, all data that led to the results in the paper should be made available to the reviewers and readers. There are cases in which this is not appropriate, which are to be explained in the Data Availability Statement.

What is a data availability statement?

A data availability statement is a dedicated section named “Data Availability Statement” that briefly describes if/what additional materials relevant to a scientific article are available and how/where these materials can be obtained.

What is the shape and purpose of a data availability statement?

The purpose of a data availability statement is to facilitate the search for materials related to a scientific article. Without a mandatory data availability statement, it remains unclear if no such materials are available or the authors just do not provide a reference to them.

To best suit that purpose it is helpful to include the data availability statement in a defined location that is consistent for all scientific articles in a community. As it is similar to citations and funding declaration in providing a reference (to other scientific articles or funding sources), it is commonly included with other similar declarations (acknowledgments, funding statement, etc.) after all other sections in the paper and right before the bibliography. We follow this evolving de-facto standard for ASE 2026 and recommend others to also follow it in their submission instructions in calls for contributions.

To facilitate the identification and localization of the data availability statement, we propose to explicitly name it “Data Availability Statement” to establish a de-facto standard, just like the bibliography list is always called “References” and “Acknowledgments” are usually following a header with just that name.

Does the data availability statement count towards the paper page limit?

No. (Only for the submission version of the research track it had to be inside the page limit.)

Do I have to publish all my data and other materials?

In principle, all materials that were used or developed to obtain results presented in a scientific article should be published if the article is intended to be published. There are cases in which publishing certain materials is impossible, difficult, or undesirable for ethical or legal reasons. In these cases, the respective materials should not be published, but an explanation should be provided in the data availability statement.

What is a DOI?

A digital object identifier (DOI) uniquely identifies a published digital object and, thus, provides an unambiguous reference to such an object.

Unlike other types of references, such as links to institutional websites or public version control systems, DOIs commonly refer to immutable digital objects. As a consequence, they are particularly suitable for supporting reproducibility; if the digital object cannot be changed, no such changes can break the link between the object and published research results. While this does not mean that reproducibility cannot be affected by other factors, at least one threat to reproducibility is mitigated.

While other unambiguous references to digital objects exist, we prefer DOIs for the longevity guarantees they provide and the genericness of the digital objects they can reference. The Handle System ©, for instance, provides a uniform and unambiguous way to reference digital contents, but does not provide the persistence guarantees that DOIs provide. Software Heritage, also provides unique identifiers for referencing permanently archived objects, but these objects are restricted to software, whereas materials accompanying research papers often also contain data, pre-packaged binaries, etc.

When should I not provide a DOI for my materials in the data availability statement?

You should not provide a DOI if you cannot or do not want to publish materials related to your paper. Reasons for not publishing these materials include legal (e.g., export controls, inclusion of company IP) or ethical (e.g., materials containing personal or security-critical data) constraints.

When should I provide a DOI?

You should provide a DOI when you wish to publish your materials. DOIs ensure that your materials remain accessible in a uniform way for a long time. Various free services for storing digital objects and providing DOI references exist, which are easy to use, e.g., Zenodo and figshare.

Why is a DOI better than other types of references?

Materials provided on public version control systems or institutional websites may vanish over time, as research has shown.

Do DOIs impose a risk that my research gets published by someone else before my related publication is accepted?

DOIs do not impose a stronger risk that research code or data is used by others than other ways of referencing published code or data. To the contrary, every DOI comes with a registration date, which can be used to demonstrate who has first published materials if several publications exist. In addition, to ensure that the context of the provided materials’ use in a scientific publication is not debated, a (possibly anonymous if under submission) pre-print of that publication can be included in the materials to prove the originality of both the published materials and their contribution to scientific publications.