  Stakeholders in the scientific field must always maintain transparency in the
process of publishing research results in journals. Unfortunately, although
research misconduct has stopped, certain forms of manipulation continue to
appear in other forms. As new techniques of scientific publishing develop,
science stakeholders need to examine the possibility of inappropriate activity
in these new platforms. The National Institute of Polar Research in Japan
launched a new data journal Polar Data Journal (PDJ) in 2017 to review the
quality of data obtained in the polar region. To maintain transparency in this
new data journal, we investigated the possibility of inappropriate data
manipulation in peer reviews before the inception of this journal. We clarified
inappropriate activity for the data in the peer review and considered
preventive measures. We designed a specific workflow for PDJ. This included two
measures: (i) the comparison of hash values in the review process and (ii) open
peer review report publishing. Using the hash value comparison, we detected two
instances of inappropriate data manipulation after the start of the journal.
This research will help improve workflow in data journals and data
repositories.
