Wondering how to publish your data with Open Context? We have news for you!

With help from our Editorial Board, we have released the first version of Open Context’s Editorial Policies & Author Guidelines. This document contains essential information about publishing with Open Context, including:

• Open Context’s open access and copyright policies,
• what you should expect of the editorial processes involved with data publication,
• a list of key information that should accompany your data publication, and
• tips on how to clean up your content in preparation for digital publication.

The Guidelines also include more specific guidance for a few sub-fields of archaeology (zooarchaeology, GIS, human osteology). These are under review and will see frequent updates, as well as guidance from additional sub-fields.

A primary aim of our work is to make the data publication process more streamlined so that publishing data becomes an expected and regular part of scholarly communication. We hope the Guidelines move us a step or two closer to this goal, and we welcome your comments!