We have built a new service which allows anyone to see who has cited data held in the Environmental Data Service (EDS). This is possible if a dataset has been published with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) by any EDS data centre. This new development allows anyone to find how many citations and links are connected to the DOI’d resource - allowing greater understanding about who is re-using archived data for the first time.
The new citation Application Programming Interface (API) results in greater transparency and traceability of EDS datasets whilst promoting credit to data creators. For example, you can view the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) citation here and see the citation metrics in the DOI.
A bit of background...
Over the last 10+ years, the EDS has developed mechanisms by which scientists could formally publish a “dataset” - for the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) this was via the Published Data Library. This data catalogue captures and publishes metadata and provides a unique ‘Digital Object Identifier’ (DOI). The DOI is provided via a NERC account with the British Library with a globally indexed service, DataCite. DataCite provides DOI and metadata services complying with best practices such as the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) principles. This service acts as a mechanism for giving credit to scientists who collect or generate data and also provides traceability and transparency to data.
Ten years later, now when scientists publish data at BODC with a DOI, their DOI will be accompanied by the number of citations the data have received - along with access to see which journals and datasets have cited the data.
BODC built the EDS citation API building on innovative work from the Environmental Information Data Centre (EIDC).
This is the first step of many in the journey of understanding data citation and agreeing processes across the international data community. The infrastructure for data is still catching up with community needs as the complexity and technology continue to rapidly evolve and change.
Find more information on the work being done on complex citations here.
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