Version 1.0 – Dated (DATE OF APPROVAL)
SMaHT Website: https://smaht.org/ SMaHT Data Portal: https://data.smaht.org/

I. Introduction

This document describes the SMaHT network policy for sharing manuscripts from the planning stage through submission to a journal. All manuscripts from SMaHT-funded activities (i.e., manuscripts acknowledging SMaHT support) are subject to this policy.

This policy aims to disseminate research outcomes quickly and facilitate collaboration and coordination of research within the network. This policy encourages the open sharing of information within the network. In keeping with this principle, sharing manuscript drafts and soliciting feedback from network members before submission is strongly encouraged. Information shared internally must be confidential and may not be shared outside of the network.

II. Responsibilities

It is the sole responsibility of network members to take appropriate steps to protect any intellectual property rights to their work and to follow any relevant rules of their institutions.

The corresponding author is responsible for complying with this policy, which includes updating the manuscript tracking system when the manuscript’s status changes (draft to submitted, submitted to published, etc.), corrections, or retractions after publication.

III. Tracking

An internal SMaHT manuscript tracking system will share information about planned manuscripts and analyses with other network members to foster collaboration and coordination and minimize overlap. The SMaHT Organizational Center will maintain this tracking system. Planed manuscripts should be entered into the manuscript tracking as early as possible to stimulate collaboration and coordination with other network members. Any information shared via the manuscript tracking system is considered private communication, with the understanding that the information in such documents is not intended for public use and will be kept confidential.

IV. Preprints

Preprints of submitted manuscripts must be shared with the public via an appropriate public preprint server (such as bioRxiv, arXiv, ChemRxiv) before or concurrently with the time of submission to a journal unless the SMaHT Policy Committee grants an exception or extension. Co-submissions to public preprint servers should be coordinated among network members when appropriate. The manuscript tracking system should be updated with a link to the preprint once it becomes available.
Exceptions or extensions may be requested in cases where sharing of preprints is not allowed due to legal requirements related to the protection of intellectual property or when the target journal does not allow preprints to be shared before publication.

V. Authorship

Publications and/or presentations using SMaHT data must (a) cite the SMaHT Marker Paper (tbd: PMID/doi), (b) indicate which released SMaHT dataset was used, and (c) cite all relevant publications and preprints describing the data being used. SMaHT data producers that generated SMaHT data used in publications and/or presentations must be acknowledged. An example of acknowledgments text that can be used is below:

1. Some data used in this work is from the NIH-funded Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) network and was provided by the SMaHT Data Analysis Center (DAC) [1UM1DA058230] on behalf of the SMaHT network. More information about the SMaHT network is available online @ https://smaht.org/.

VI. Citations

The network acknowledges that public preprints are considered publications for all practical purposes by network members and should be cited and credited like papers. Preprints establish priority in the field and can be included in progress reports, CVs, and lists of publications.

VII. Open Access

At a minimum, publications must comply with the NIH Public Access policy (https://publicaccess.nih.gov/). To maximize the network’s impact, authors should make strong efforts to publish their work using open-access policies whenever possible.

VIII. Related Work

We encourage network members to share information about planned or submitted manuscripts, even if the network does not fund the work but is related to the mission of the SMaHT project. It may be considered a violation of the Code of Conduct to use information from within the SMaHT consortium to publish findings in related work before the SMaHT consortium.

IX. Policy Updates

This policy will be reviewed and, if necessary, updated semi-annually.

Contributors

Revisions