New open-access journal for sustainable data and software

JoDaKISS, the Journal of Data- and Knowledge-Integrated Simulation Science, is a new open-access journal committed to the scientific quality testing of data sets and software for simulations. It opens up new ways for scientists to publish them. The initiative for the journal arose from the interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers from the University of Stuttgart and the SimTech Cluster of Excellence located there, the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), the Ilmenau University of Technology, the Nanyang Technological University Singapore, and the Simula Research Laboratory in Oslo. All partners are committed to an open, transparent, and reproducible science.

JoDaKISS relies on an open, transparent, and sustainable publication process that ensures that research data and software are traceable and reusable and thus meets the requirements of FAIR data. The journal also follows the principle of Diamond Open Access: Publications are free of charge for authors, as well as unrestricted access to the content. This sets JoDaKISS apart from many traditional publication models, which involve high fees for both publishing and licensing.

Interdisciplinary research on complex simulations requires reliable, well-documented data and software. Valuable data sets and software are often created during scientific projects and subsequently published. JoDaKISS takes this as its starting point. As an overlay journal, it uses existing repositories in which data and software have already been published, without external quality assurance. Researchers now have the opportunity to submit their data sets and software for review to JoDaKISS. Following a peer review process conducted by experts in the field, the reviewed content is published in the form of a detailed data sheet that describes the relevance, quality, and possible uses of the respective resources.

This model greatly facilitates the reuse of research data and promotes open exchange within the scientific community. Especially in simulation science, where experiments can often only be carried out on a computer, a sustainable and reliable database is essential. JoDaKISS benefits from the expertise of various research institutions and initiatives, including the SimTech Cluster of Excellence, which is intensively involved in sustainable software and data publication in simulation science. In addition, the editorial board members are strongly rooted in the Germany’s National Research Data Initiative. The journal contributes to making scientific simulations even more transparent and reproducible — from the modeling of chemical processes in space to flow simulations in porous media to biomechanical analyses with medical relevance.

JoDaKISS is the result of international and cross-institutional cooperation. Researchers from different disciplines and universities have joined forces to establish a scientific publication platform that is committed to the principles of open science and provides a framework for scientifically evaluating and highlighting added value of research data.

The scientific management of JoDaKISS is in the hands of an international editorial board. The inaugural editorial team combines expertise in the fields of simulation, mathematics, engineering, computer science, research software, and research data: Bernd Flemisch (University of Stuttgart), Dominik Göddeke (University of Stuttgart), Jeroen Hanselman (University of Kaiserslautern-Landau), Jan Heiland (Ilmenau University of Technology/Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems), Sibylle Hermann (University of Stuttgart), Melanie Herschel (Nanyang Technological University Singapore), Timo Koch (Simula Research Laboratory, Oslo), and Holger Steeb (University of Stuttgart).

The journal is published on Episciences, a platform that provides free infrastructures for scientific journals and enables sustainable open-access publication.

The importance of JoDaKISS goes beyond simulation science. The concept of open, quality-assured publication of research data and software is highly relevant for many scientific disciplines. Close cooperation between researchers from different institutions and departments creates a publication culture that makes scientific results accessible not only to a limited specialist community but also to the broader scientific community. The establishment of JoDaKISS marks a new approach to actively promoting open science while ensuring the highest scientific quality standards.