Data journals publish articles with descriptions of research data. This distinguishes them from conventional scientific journals, which focus on scientific interpretation. Data journal articles (also known as data papers) usually describe large and complex datasets, and the articles usually go through a peer-review process, as is common in conventional scientific journals. The data itself, which is described in data journal articles, is mostly published separately in data repositories.

Data journals promote the reuse of research data and its recognition as a scientific achievement, and seek to improve the transparency of scientific methods and results and support good data management practices.

An overview of quality-assured data journals is provided by forschungsdaten.org.