Silva - Essential Files

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The Author retains the copyright of their Article. The Publisher has the right to publish the Articles and keep them available for the public in any current or future publishing format. Publisher may also transfer publishing rights and/or maintenance of the Silva Fennica website to others who respect the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines may be returned to authors. This is the most extensive list. There are some minor modifications depending on the article type.

Silva Fennica publishes significant new knowledge on forest sciences. The scope covers research on forestry and forest ecosystems. Silva Fennica aims to increase understanding on forest ecosystems, and sustainable use and conservation of forest resources.

Articles published in Silva Fennica are assigned to volumes and issues. That notwithstanding, new articles are posted on the website as soon as they are in their final form. All articles are published both as html files with supporting information and as printer-friendly pdf files.

Silva Fennica is published in English. You must consistently follow only one English standard (e.g., UK or US English). Follow a concise scientific writing style. You are also responsible of ensuring that the manuscript does not contain grammatical, orthographic, stylistics, or other linguistic errors. Manuscripts that are not written in good English will be rejected without peer-review.

Review articles are literature-based critical surveys summarising and analysing particular fields or topics in forest science. The Editor-in-Chief may also invite renowned scientists to write a review article on a topical issue of general relevance. The abstract must not be longer than 400 words. Submission of longer abstracts is disabled in the system. Meta analysis codes, if applicable, must be made open before publishing. The work flow e.g., search, inclusion and exclusion of materials, must be described in a transparent and reproducible manner.

Research notes report preliminary or tentative results of projects underway e.g., test of a research methodology, or completed research with limited scope but relevant to an international readership. Research note follows the structure of a research article but it must not be longer than 2 500 words and include more than 4 tables and/or figures. The word count is from the beginning of Introduction to the end of Discussion/Conclusions. The abstract must not be longer than 250 words. Submission of longer abstracts is disabled in the system. Research data and computational codes, on which a research note is based, must be opened before publication.

Data notes describe an open data set deposited to a trusted open repository. They contain a clear and exhaustive description of the dataset: details of data collection (sampling, measurements, all possible modifications, exclusions if any, etc.), its content, its potential use, and all the metadata required to access the dataset. The data set must have a persistent identification (DOI, URN, Handle). List also all published articles, in which the data set has been used. Data note must not be longer than 2 500 words and include more than 4 tables and/or figures. The word count is from the beginning of Introduction to the end of Discussion. The abstract must not be longer than 250 words. Submission of longer abstracts is disabled in the system.

Discussion articles put forward fresh ideas or new views about the theory and practice of science, point out problems needing the attention of researchers, or comment on topical issues. The views presented must be justified with adequate references to earlier work. Discussion articles are revised by the scientific editors of Silva Fennica. Discussion article is normally not longer than 2 500 words and includes no more than 4 tables and/or figures.

Research data and computer codes used for analysing them are important products of scientific research. Open data make the full evaluation of research results possible. Only open data make a study really reproducible. Value of the data collected for solving a particular research problem may gain new value over time e.g., as a part of a time series, as a comparison point for analysing changes or as a part of the cultural heritage. New analytical methods may reveal phenomena that the original data analysis missed. Accumulation of data on a particular field like genomics makes global reanalyses possible. Open data offer also new cooperation possibilities for scientists, research groups and organisations. All this calls for data openness and reliable description, or metadata, of it. Based on these considerations, Silva Fennica requests that data and analytical codes, on which articles published in the journal are based, must be opened. This request concerns manuscripts submitted on or after 1 February 2024.

Research data refer to the data that are generated and/or utilised in the research you report in your article. They may consist of data from several primary sources.Opening of them requires a few clear steps:

1. Check that your research data file(s) is clear and save it in an archivable, machine-readable format. We recommend csv format for alphanumeric data, txt for text data, tiff for graphics and mp4 for videos and multimedia files.
2. Prepare rich metadata on your data. Instructions on the contents of metadata can be found at
3. Deposit your research data and the metadata in a trusted repository. The chapter 3.6 of these author instructions gives basic guidance on selecting repositories. The repository must give a persistent identifier (e.g., DOI or URN) and a Creative Commons licence for your data.

In the following, you will find exact instructions for many conceptual and technical questions about opening data and codes. All instructions do not apply to all cases. You must apply the instructions to your material. On the other hand, we hope that most authors would find the necessary information.

Research data refer to data that are generated and/or utilised in research. This is the data set, on which your article is based and which you must open. They can consist of data from several primary sources.

Published research data refer to a referenceable data entity. At a minimum, their metadata are publicly available and any restrictions to their availability are determined in a machine-readable manner.

Anonymised data refer to a dataset where information that directly identifies research objects is removed. This may be e.g., personally identifying information or exact location (coordinates) of threatened organisms studied.

Curated data refer to a data set, which has been reviewed for removing all information or combinations of information that may reveal the identity of research objects. For example, age and profession of a forest owner may reveal their identity in a small municipality while this would not happen in a large town.

Metadata are formed by a structured description of your data. The metadata include keywords for finding your data, instructions for accessing your data, copyright and licencing information, definition of all variables, a concise description on collection and/or measurements used for creating the data and information on publications based on the data and/or other use of the data.

Since January 2021, Silva Fennica applies the Transparency and openness promotion guidelines of the Center for Open Science. We started on Level 1 of all the eight points described below i.e., we encourage good practices and reviewers are instructed to check for them. Starting February 2024, all submissions will be required to adhere to the level 2 in citation standards, data transparency, analytic methods transparency, and design and analysis transparency. This level requires data, materials and code openness as a condition for publishing in Silva Fennica.

1) Citation standards refer to the use of community-based standards, such as nomenclature and reporting standards, where applicable. Silva Fennica requires e.g., that taxonomic nomenclature follows an internationally recognised database and soils are classified according to the World Reference Base for Soil Resources. If publicly available data not produced by the authors are used in an article, they must be cited according to the instructions of DataCite in the list of references. These requirements contribute towards fulfilling the interoperability and reusability of data. See chapter 8 of these author instructions for detailed instructions.

2) Your research data must be open as a condition for publishing your research article, research note or data note in Silva Fennica. In a dedicated section of the article you must write out how to access your data. If the data are not open for an acceptable reason, you are requested to explain why they are not open. Each case of not opening your data must be agreed before submission with the Editor-in-Chief or the Managing Editor of Silva Fennica. Open data must be posted in a trusted open repository for wide reusability. Even in the case that your data are not open for an acceptable reason, the metadata of your data set must be open.

3) Analytic methods or code transparency is needed for understanding how results were derived from the research data. Your code must be open as a condition for publishing your research article, research note or data note in Silva Fennica. If you run meta analyses for your review article, the code must be open. Exceptions for code openness must be accepted before submission by the Editor-in-Chief or the Managing Editor. You may submit short codes with the manuscript as supplementary files while extensive codes are better to deposit to a trusted open repository.

4) Research materials are the materials used for conducting the research or collected during the research but are not in a directly analysable form. Research materials may be digital e.g., questionnaires, survey instruments and scripts used in social sciences, video used in forest work research or photographs used for identifying plants. Physical materials include e.g., voucher specimens of plants collected for a particular research project or cryopreserved microbia. Collection and archival materials (e.g., plant specimens studied in a museum) must be identified so that other scientist may find them. You must state if materials are available and if not, why. See point 8.2 for these instructions.

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