1. Data Citation:
A Critical Role for Publishers
Brian Hole, Founder and CEO
SciDataCon 2014, Citing Data to Facilitate Multidisciplinary Research session
New Delhi, November 5 2014
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com www.ubiquitypress.com / @ubiquitypress

2. Overview
 Why is data citation
important?
 Publisher guidelines
 Copyediting with data
in mind
 Data papers
 Machine readability
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com www.ubiquitypress.com / @ubiquitypress

3. The Social Contract
of Science
• Dissemination
• Validation
• Further development
Scientific Malpractice
• Results
• Data
• Software
• Hardware, wetware…
#@%$#@
% #@%$#
Source: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2015
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5. 2. Publisher Guidelines
• No single way to cite data, but good guidelines
available (e.g. Force 11)
• Journal must have clear guidelines about how to
cite data, e.g.:
• Creators, date of publication, host repository,
version, persistent identifier
• Must be included in reference list
Alexander NS, Wint W (2013) Data from: Projected population
proximity indices (30km) for 2005, 2030 & 2050. Dryad
Digital Repository. http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.12734
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com www.ubiquitypress.com / @ubiquitypress

6. 3. Copyediting with Data in Mind
• Publishers need to provide better guidelines for
copyeditors:
• Make sure journal guidelines for data
citation are being followed
• Go back to authors if no citation included
• Fix incorrect citations (e.g. simple hyperlinks
in text)
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com www.ubiquitypress.com / @ubiquitypress

7. 4. Data papers
• Data papers incentivize authors to follow good
practice in releasing and citing data:
• Data professional is lead author
• Paper advertises work, encourages reuse,
collaboration, indicates impact
• Makes citation much easier:
• Data is automatically cited correctly in
data paper
• Data paper is naturally included in
reference list of research papers
• Citations etc. can be tracked
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com www.ubiquitypress.com / @ubiquitypress

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10. 5. Machine Readable Citations
• Many data reuse scenarios involve locating,
querying and recombining data from a large
number of sources
• This can be made significantly easier by
making data citations machine readable
• Enables locating of data via text mining of
relevant literature
• Two possible methods – XML and RDF
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com www.ubiquitypress.com / @ubiquitypress

11. • Journal Article Tag
Suite (JATS)
maintained by
NISO used by most
publishers
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com www.ubiquitypress.com / @ubiquitypress
XML
• JATS currently
recommends
tagging data
references as web
publications
<ref>
<element-citation publication-type="database"
publication-format="web">
<source>Database of Human Disease Causing
Gene Homologues in Dictyostelium Discoideum
[Internet] </source>
<publisher-loc>San Diego (CA)</publisher-loc>
<publisher-name>San Diego Supercomputer
Center</publisher-name>
<year>2003</year>
<date-in-citation>cited 2007 Feb 2
</date-in-citation>
<comment>Available from: <uri>http://
dictyworkbench.sdsc.edu/HDGDD/</uri>.
</comment>
</element-citation>
</ref>
• Not ideal, but
available now

12. • Several proposals for improvements with more
suitable terms:
• NISO-JATS Data Citation Implementation Workshop
held at the British Library in June 2014
• Force11 Data Citation Implementation Group
• <JATS4R> publisher group
• E.g.:
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XML
<name> -> <collab collab-type="curators">
<source> -> <data-title>
<edition> -> <version>
<license>

13. • Can make data not only discoverable through citation,
but also the relationship of it to the research.
4. Oldenburg H (1665). "Epistle Dedicatory". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
of London 1: 0–0. doi:10 .1098/rstl.1665.0001.
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com www.ubiquitypress.com / @ubiquitypress
RDF
• JATS to RDF provides a start for this, but publishers
still need to make data citations more specific
<rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-item-4"><co:index>4</co:index></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4"><dcterms:bibliographicCitation>
Oldenburg, H (1665). </dcterms:bibliographicCitation></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4"><rdf:type
rdf:resource="http://purl.org/spar/biro/BibliographicReference"/></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-
4"><dcterms:identifier>b4</dcterms:identifier></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4"><biro:references rdf:resource="reference-4-textual-entity"/></
rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="textual-entity"><cito:cites rdf:resource="reference-4-textual-entity"/></rdf:Description><rdf:Description
rdf:about="reference-4-textual-entity"><rdf:type rdf:resource="http://purl.org/spar/fabio/Expression"/><frbr:realizationOf rdf:resource="reference-4-conceptual-work"/></
rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-textual-entity"><rdf:type
rdf:resource="http://purl.org/spar/fabio/JournalArticle"/></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-conceptual-work"><dcterms:creator
rdf:resource="reference-4-agent-1"/></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-agent-1"><rdf:type
rdf:resource="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person"/></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-agent-
1"><foaf:familyName>Oldenburg</foaf:familyName></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-agent-
1"><foaf:givenName>H</foaf:givenName></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-textual-entity"><
fabio:hasPublicationYear>1665</fabio:hasPublicationYear></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-textual-entity"><dcterms:title>Epistle
Dedicatory</dcterms:title></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-textual-entity-source"><dcterms:title>Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
of London</dcterms:title></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-textual-entity"><frbr:partOf rdf:resource="reference-4-textual-entity-source"/></
rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-textual-entity"><frbr:partOf rdf:resource="periodical-volume-reference-4-textual-entity"/></
rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="periodical-volume-reference-4-textual-entity"><rdf:type
rdf:resource="http://purl.org/spar/fabio/PeriodicalVolume"/><prism:volume>1</prism:volume><frbr:partOf><rdf:Description><rdf:type
rdf:resource="http://purl.org/spar/fabio/Periodical"/></rdf:Description></frbr:partOf></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-textual-entity"><
frbr:embodiment rdf:resource="digital-embodiment-d1e2589"/></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="digital-embodiment-d1e2589"><
prism:startingPage rdf:resource="0"/></rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="reference-4-textual-entity"><
prism:doi>10.1098/rstl.1665.0001</prism:doi></rdf:Description>

14. • The Citation Typing Ontology (CiTO) is available
now, and makes the relationship explicit:
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RDF
<a about="http://dx.doi.org/10.5334 /jophd.ab"
rel="cito:Uses_Data_From"
href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.12734”>http://
dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.12734</a>

15. Summary
• Clear publisher guidelines.
• Copyediting with data in mind
• Using data papers
• Ensuring machine readability of citations
Any questions?
Please feel free to contact
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com
brian.hole@ubiquitypress.com www.ubiquitypress.com / @ubiquitypress