One of the current hot topics in science is data: how can datasets be used in scientific and scholarly research in a more reliable, citable and accountable way? Data is of paramount importance to scientific progress, yet most research data remains private. Enhancing the transparency of the processes applied to collect, treat and analyze data will help to render scientific research results reproducible and thus more accountable. The datasets itself should also be accessible to other researchers, so that research publications, dataset descriptions, and the actual datasets can be linked. The journal Data provides a forum to publish methodical papers on processes applied to data collection, treatment and analysis, as well as for data descriptors publishing descriptions of a linked dataset.