I did some molecular docking work using a 15 day trial version. Now I am confused on whether that work was any worth? Can I publish the data citing the trail software? Please advise.
yes you can publish as when you are in the trial period the software company is granting you the permission to use their software. So it wont be an issue. But if your reviewer ask u to do some more job or ask for some other data and by that time your trial period is over then that can be a problem! But technically, u can publish.
Yes, you can surely publish the data generated by the trial version. You have no need to tell the publishers/editors that you have used the trial version. However, there are some drawbacks of the trial versions, one of those is, you can only use some of the basic features of the software, but advanced features are usually blocked. They say, purchase the full version to access these features...
Yes I am sure. Most of the students use trial versions of Docking, structure drawing, graphpad prism, corel draw etc. and in articles we usually mention "The IC50 values were calculated using Graphpad prism 5.02" but not Graphpad prism 5.02 FULL VERSION !! :-)
Nobody says so that you are using a full version or a trial version in the manuscripts. For example, if you are using Discovery Studio, people only mention about the version and not the 'full version' or the 'trial version'. So really it doesn't matter if you are using a full version or trial version as long as the trial version has all the features as the full version has.
And once the reviewers ask you for a major revision or to repeat something using that particular software and you don't have it anymore, you have to definitely purchase it or may be you can ask some of your colleagues or friends to have a trial version again for you and you are ready to go again.
You can also have a look at the answers to similar question asked before on ResearchGate. Here is the link- https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_you_publish_a_paper_using_a_trial_version_of_some_software_to_process_data
Another thing is that if you are using a trial version, do not forget to register that on their respective websites. I think you can not publish the results unless the trial version is registered with the software provider. I hope this will help.
yes surely. you can publish the research made with a trial software. The only thing is the citation in the acknowledgement section. For example I have reported some times. The authors wish to thank (name of vendor) for providing the trial version of (name of program).