As of April 1, 2007, the Annals of Internal Medicine instituted a new policy designed to help the research community evaluate and build on published results. Authors of original research articles in the Annals are required to include a statement indicating whether the study protocol, data, and statistical code are available to readers and under what terms the authors will share this information. Sharing is not mandatory, but authors are required to state whether they are willing to share the protocol, data, and statistical code. Authors are not asked whether they are willing to make this information available until after a manuscript is accepted for publication.

According to an article announcing the new policy, the goal of the new requirement is to promote “reproducible research” in which independent researchers can reproduce results using the same procedures and data as the original investigators. Reproducible research does not require unlimited access to data and methods, but it requires access to as much of the dataset and statistical procedures as is necessary to reproduce the published results. As the article states: