General Policy

Journal of Sport and Exercise Studies supports transparency, reproducibility, and responsible data sharing in scholarly research. Authors are encouraged to make the data, materials, protocols, analysis scripts, and supplementary information supporting their findings available whenever ethically, legally, and practically possible.

The journal recognizes that not all research data can be made publicly available. Data sharing must comply with participant consent, ethical approval, privacy protection, institutional policies, legal requirements, copyright restrictions, and data protection obligations.

Data Availability Statement

Authors should include a Data Availability Statement in their manuscript. The statement should explain whether the data supporting the findings of the study are available, where they can be accessed, and under what conditions.

Examples of Data Availability Statements

Types of Data Covered by This Policy

This policy applies to research data and materials that support the findings, analysis, interpretation, or conclusions of a manuscript. Relevant materials may include, but are not limited to:

• Quantitative datasets;
• Qualitative interview transcripts, field notes, or coded materials, where ethically shareable;
• Survey instruments, questionnaires, and scales;
• Experimental protocols and intervention procedures;
• Statistical analysis files, syntax, scripts, or code;
• Tables, figures, supplementary datasets, and appendices;
• Performance testing data, physical activity records, and training logs;
• Wearable device, sensor, motion tracking, video analysis, or digital platform data;
• Systematic review search strategies, screening records, extraction sheets, and review protocols.

Sport and Exercise Research Data

Sport and exercise research may involve sensitive or identifiable data, including physiological measurements, physical performance data, health-related information, training records, injury data, psychological responses, video recordings, motion analysis, wearable device outputs, or data collected from athletes, students, minors, patients, teams, schools, clubs, or community participants.

Authors should ensure that data sharing in such research does not compromise:

• Participant privacy and confidentiality;
• Informed consent conditions;
• Ethical approval requirements;
• Personal health or biometric information protection;
• Identifiability of athletes, students, minors, patients, or team members;
• Institutional, school, club, team, or organizational restrictions;
• Data protection and privacy laws applicable to the research context.

Ethical and Legal Restrictions

Authors should not make data publicly available if doing so would violate participant consent, ethical approval conditions, privacy rights, confidentiality obligations, data protection laws, institutional rules, contractual restrictions, or other legal requirements.

Where data cannot be shared, authors should provide a clear explanation in the Data Availability Statement. The inability to share data does not automatically prevent publication, provided that the restriction is justified and the study is otherwise transparent and ethically sound.

Participant Privacy and De-identification

When sharing research data involving human participants, authors should remove or protect information that could identify participants directly or indirectly. This may include names, contact details, institutional identifiers, images, video files, GPS data, biometric information, detailed demographic combinations, or team and school identifiers.

De-identification should be performed carefully. In small samples, elite sport settings, school-based studies, or specific team contexts, participants may remain identifiable even after names are removed. Authors should consider whether data sharing could reasonably lead to re-identification.

Recommended Repositories

Authors are encouraged to deposit shareable data, code, protocols, and supplementary materials in a trusted repository that provides stable access, clear metadata, and a persistent identifier where possible.

Suitable repositories may include:

• General-purpose research repositories;
• Institutional repositories;
• Subject-specific repositories;
• Funder-designated repositories;
• Trusted data archives that support long-term access and citation.

Authors should ensure that any repository used complies with applicable privacy, consent, and data protection requirements.

Supplementary Materials

Authors may submit supplementary materials to support transparency and reproducibility. Supplementary materials may include additional tables, figures, protocols, instruments, interview guides, coding frameworks, statistical outputs, analysis scripts, datasets, or methodological appendices.

Supplementary materials should be relevant, clearly labelled, and referred to in the manuscript. Authors are responsible for ensuring that supplementary materials do not contain confidential, identifying, copyrighted, or ethically restricted information unless appropriate permission has been obtained.

Code, Scripts, and Analytical Materials

Where applicable, authors are encouraged to share statistical code, data processing scripts, analysis syntax, simulation files, or computational workflows that support the reported findings. Sharing such materials can improve transparency, reproducibility, and trust in the research.

Authors should ensure that shared code or analytical materials are clearly documented and do not include confidential data, access credentials, identifying information, or restricted institutional materials.

Qualitative Data

Qualitative data, such as interview transcripts, focus group records, observation notes, fieldnotes, open-ended survey responses, or ethnographic materials, may contain sensitive or identifying information. Authors should not share qualitative data publicly unless participants have consented to such sharing and confidentiality can be protected.

Where full qualitative data cannot be shared, authors may consider sharing coded excerpts, coding frameworks, interview guides, analytical memos, or methodological appendices, provided that doing so is ethically appropriate.

Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses

For systematic reviews and meta-analyses, authors should provide sufficient information to allow readers to understand and evaluate the review process. Where applicable, authors are encouraged to share:

• Search strategies;
• Eligibility criteria;
• Screening records;
• Data extraction forms;
• Risk-of-bias or quality assessment tools;
• Meta-analysis datasets and statistical code;
• Review protocols or registration details where available.

Editorial Requests for Data

During peer review or after publication, the Editorial Office may request additional information, data, code, ethics documentation, consent records, protocols, or analysis materials where necessary to assess the reliability, transparency, or ethical compliance of a manuscript.

Failure to provide reasonable clarification or supporting materials when serious concerns arise may affect editorial decisions and may lead to correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other action in accordance with the journal’s publication ethics policies.

Data Citation

When datasets, code, protocols, or other research materials are publicly available, authors should cite them appropriately in the manuscript and reference list where applicable. Data citation should include the creator, year, title, repository, version, and DOI or persistent identifier where available.

Proper data citation supports transparency, credit, reuse, and long-term accessibility of research materials.

Data Availability and Peer Review

Data availability is considered as part of the journal’s commitment to transparency and research integrity. However, editorial decisions are based on the overall scholarly quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, and contribution of the manuscript.

Manuscripts will not be rejected solely because data cannot be publicly shared, provided that the restriction is justified, the data are ethically handled, and the manuscript reports methods and findings with sufficient transparency.

Data Availability Summary

Data sharing: Encouraged where ethically, legally, and practically possible.

Data Availability Statement: Required or strongly expected for all research articles.

Human participant data: Must be shared only when consent, privacy, and ethical requirements allow.

Restricted data: Authors should explain restrictions clearly.

Transparency: Authors should provide sufficient methodological and analytical detail to support evaluation and reproducibility.