A description of the idea of transitive credit, a potential way of quantifying the contribution of various people to scholarly products, where the contribution is direct or indirect (through additional levels of products)

1. www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
Transi3ve
Credit
Daniel
S.
Katz
Senior
Fellow,
Computa3on
Ins3tute
(University
of
Chicago
&
Argonne
Na3onal
Laboratory)
Affiliate
Faculty,
CCT
(LSU)
Adjunct
Associate
Professor,
ECE
(LSU)

2. • Science
relies
on
ac3vi3es
that
are
not
fully
recognized
– Sharing
of
data;
development
of
common
data
resources,
soPware
and
methodologies;
annota3on
of
data
and
publica3ons;
crea3ng
educa3on
modules
&
tools
• Accepted
problem:
many
recent
reports
• ‘Solu3ons’:
e.g.,
NSF
biosketch
“products”,
not
publica3ons
• To
promote
new
scien3fic
ac3vi3es,
we
must:
– Develop
mechanisms
for
assigning
credit
– Facilitate
the
appropriate
aXribu3on
of
research
outcomes
– Devise
incen3ves
for
ac3vi3es
that
facilitate
research
– Allocate
funds
to
maximize
return
on
investment
www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
Mo3va3on
• This
talk
2
– New
idea,
Transi3ve
Credit
transi've
credit,
to
address
the
issue
of
credi3ng
indirect
contribu3ons
– Leads
to
poten3al
solu3ons
to
other
problems

3. • Formal
cita3on
originally
for
authen3ca3on
and
authority,
rather
than
for
credit
and
acknowledgment
or
aXribu3on
• Late
1500s:
scien3fic
cita3on
in
Western
history
appears
• Early
1700s:
legal
cita3on
for
understanding
precedents
– Copyright
(recognizing
authors’
rights)
also
(1710
Statute
of
Anne)
– Maybe
3ed
to
slow
societal
recogni3on
of
intellectual
property,
which
developed
alongside
the
prin3ng
press
– Note:
science
paper
authorship
is
for
both
authors
and
contributors
– E.g.,
when
mul3ple
groups
claim
credit
for
the
same
advance,
backward
ci3ng
may
be
used—by
looking
at
which
groups
are
cited
and
how
this
changes
over
3me—to
ascertain
how
the
larger
scien3fic
community
assigns
credit
– OPen
through
cita3on
indices,
e.g.
to
the
Bible
from
the
1100s
– Use
of
cita3ons
indices
in
science
is
much
more
recent,
e.g.
by
Garfield
in
the
1950s:
Science
Cita3on
Index.
www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
History
of
cita3on
• Backward
ci3ng:
looking
for
the
predecessors
of
an
idea.
• Forward
ci3ng:
understanding
how
an
idea
is
used
3
Transi3ve
Credit

4. • New
knowledge
clearly
builds
on
past
knowledge
• Tradi3onally,
author
cites
previous
paper
by
adding
a
reference
to
the
author,
3tle,
place
of
publica3on
etc.
• Doesn’t
work
well
for
digital
products
such
as
soPware,
which
are
oPen
dependent
on
libraries
(assembled
soPware
packages),
code
fragments,
and
algorithms
• For
these,
iden3fier
(“name”
that
refers
to
a
unique
product)
that
should
be
cited
is
not
clear
• And,
if
a
cited
library
depends
on
another
library,
the
contribu3on
of
this
second
library
is
not
captured
• Similarly,
cita3on
of
a
dataset
should
perhaps
give
credit
to
the
people
who
gathered
the
data,
as
well
as
those
who
curated
it,
but
the
paper
author
may
not
know
or
be
able
to
find
these
details
www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
Why
tradi3onal
cita3on
is
failing
4
Transi3ve
Credit

5. • To
promote
crea3on,
maintenance,
and
use
of
digital
products,
must
measure
• Lack
of
credit
currently
is
a
nega3ve
force
that
stops
sharing
of
digital
products
• Crea3ng
a
credit
mechanism
would
both
remove
the
nega3ve
force
and
create
• Could
change
culture,
since
act
of
measuring
an
item
and
publicizing
that
measure
leads
to
a
focus
on
improving
the
measure,
thus
improving
the
item
– Inten3onal,
e.g.
Check
por3on
of
the
Deming
Cycle
– Uninten3onal,
e.g.
teachers
teach
students
to
answer
specific
ques3ons
rather
than
the
material
that
the
ques3ons
cover;
gaming
h-­‐index,
impact
factor,
etc.
• In
commercial
world,
credit
is
generally
mone3zed,
with
soPware
and
data
commercialized
as
products
that
must
be
purchased
– Alterna3ve
solu3on
that
recognizes
producers
of
products,
but
doesn’t
help
• Mo3va3on
is
of
great
concern
today
as
science
becomes
more
collabora3ve
(aka
team
science),
and
as
collabora3on
leads
to
more
—
and
beXer
—
science
– Average
number
of
authors
per
paper
increasing;
collabora3ve
projects
are
www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
Social
Mo3va3on
5
these
ac3vi3es,
and
provide
credit
to
those
who
do
them
(cf.
Lewin’s
principle
of
force
field
analysis).
a
posi3ve
force
understanding
their
use
in
later
scien3fic
discoveries
becoming
common
Transi3ve
Credit

6. – People
and
things:
Authors,
papers,
soPware,
data,
systems
o Tradi3onally
listed
in
author
list,
paper
body,
acknowledgements,
o Perhaps
hierarchical:
determine
credit
for
authors
and
how
to
split
o We’ve
figured
out
author
ordering
in
all
published
papers,
we
can
3. Person
who
registers
product
also
registers
credit
map
www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
Credit
Map
Basic
idea:
For
a
new
product
1. Decide
what
to
credit
2. Determine
how
much
credit
for
each
6
cita3ons,
etc.
o All
iden3fied
uniquely:
using
ORCIDs,
DOIs,
etc.
– Not
straighkorward
it,
credit
for
soPware
and
how
to
split
it,
etc.
figure
this
out
too
– Affirmed
by
registra3on
agency?
(cf.
Lynch
intro)
Transi3ve
Credit

7. www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
Example
Credit
Map
7
Transi3ve
Credit
Paper
Author
B
...
Paper
M
...
SoPware
X
...
0.2
0.05
0.2
Author
A
0.2
Data
K
...
0.1

8. JSON-­‐LD
• JavaScript
Object
Nota3on
for
Linked
Data
• hXp://json-­‐ld.org/
• Extension
of
the
key-­‐value
based
JSON
document
format
• Provides
a
way
of
describing
machine-­‐readable
informa3on
with
seman3c
context
www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
8
Transi3ve
Credit

9. www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
JSON-­‐LD
example:
{!
"@context": "http://schema.org",!
"@type": "ScholarlyArticle",!
"headline": "Implementing Transitive Credit
with JSON-LD",!
"dateCreated": "2014-07-10",!
"keywords": "transitive credit, json-ld, linked
data”,!
"author": [
{!
0000-0001-5934-7525”,!
"email”: "d.katz@ieee.org"!
"creditWeight": "0.25"!
},!
{!
"@type": "Person",!
"name": "Arfon Smith",!
"@id": "http://orcid.org/
0000-0002-7217-4494", !
9
"@type": "Person",!
"name": "Daniel S. Katz",!
"@id": "http://orcid.org/
"email": "arfon@github.com",!
"creditWeight": "0.25"!
}
],
Transi3ve
Credit
"citation": {
"articles": [
{
"@type": "ScholarlyArticle",!
"headline": "Transitive credit ...”,
"doi": "10.5334/jors.be",!
"creditWeight": "0.3"
}
...
],
"software": [
{
"@type": "Code",!
"name": "Fidgit",!
"codeRepository": "https://github.com/
arfon/fidgit", !
"license": "http://opensource.org/licenses/
MIT",
"creditWeight": "0.04"
}
...
"data": [
{
.....

10. • Credit
maps
are
related
• Allows
weighted
credit
to
flow
down
and
up
• Credit
for
SoPware
12
in
Paper
is
0.2
*
0.3
(6%)
• Could
also
look
at
all
papers
SoPware
12
contributes
to
www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
10
Transi3ve
Credit
Author
1
...
Paper
4
...
SoPware
12
...
0.1
0.1
0.3
Transi3ve
Credit
Paper
Author
B
...
Paper
M
...
SoPware
X
...
0.2
0.05
0.2
Author
A
0.2
Data
K
...
0.1

11. • Scien3fic
sociotechnical
system
is
moving
to
make
this
work
– Tracking
product
usage
to
make
genera3ng
credit
maps
easier
www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
Issues
&
future
work
• Standards
(e.g.
CASRAI,
VIVO)?
• Social/cultural
acceptance?
• Test
in
a
domain
to
see
what
is
learned?
11
– Need
unique
IDs
for
people
&
products
o ORCID
&
DOIs?
– Registering
credit
maps
o Implement
within
handle/DOI?
o Provenance
systems?
Transi3ve
Credit

12. • Ini3al
discussions
about
this
in
2010
Ins3tute
for
Compu3ng
in
Science
(ICiS)
workshop
breakout
session
with
Jacob
Foster
(U
Chicago)
&
Robert
Stevens
(U
Manchester)
• Further
discussions
with
David
Proctor
(NSF)
&
Ian
Foster
(U
Chicago)
• D.
S.
Katz,
"Cita3on
and
AXribu3on
of
Digital
Products:
Social
and
Technological
Concerns,"
1st
Workshop
on
Sustainable
SoPware
for
Science:
Prac3ce
and
Experiences
(WSSSPE1),
in
conjunc3on
with
SC13,
figshare,
DOI:
10.6084/m9.figshare.791606,
2013
• D.
S.
Katz,
"Transi3ve
Credit
as
a
Means
to
Address
Social
and
Technological
Concerns
Stemming
from
Cita3on
and
AXribu3on
of
Digital
Products,"
Journal
of
Open
Research
SoPware,
v.2(1):
e20,
pp.
1-­‐4,
2014
(DOI:
10.5334/jors.be)
• D.
S.
Katz,
A.
M.
Smith,
"Implemen3ng
Transi3ve
Credit
with
JSON-­‐
LD,"
2nd
Workshop
on
Sustainable
SoPware
for
Science:
Prac3ce
and
Experiences
(WSSSPE2),
in
conjunc3on
with
SC14,
arXiv:1407.5117
[cs.CY],
2014
www.ci.anl.gov
www.ci.uchicago.edu
Credits
12
Transi3ve
Credit