Ludo Waltman discusses open citations, including arguments for why they are important, how initiatives like Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) are working to implement them, and how different stakeholders can support open citations. Key points include that open citations improve transparency and reproducibility in research evaluation and scientometrics. I4OC is working with Crossref to make citation metadata openly available, though large publishers like Elsevier still do not support open citations. Countries like Sweden and the Netherlands have taken a leading role in supporting open citations through signing an open letter in support of I4OC.

1. Toward open citations: Why, how, and when?
Ludo Waltman
Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University
Open Metrics Seminar
Uppsala, Sweden
May 23, 2018

2. How do Sweden and the Netherlands stand out from
the rest of the world?
1

3. Outline
• Open citations: Why?
• Open citations: How and when?
• Supporting open citations
2

4. Open citations: Why?
3

5. OpenCitations Corpus
4
Nature, 2013, 502, 295–297

6. Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC)
5
https://i4oc.org/

7. Scientometric community
6
www.issi-society.org/open-citations-letter/

8. Scientometric community
7

9. Scientometric community
8

10. CWTS Leiden Ranking
9

11. Transparency of university rankings
10
www.cwts.nl/blog?article=n-r2q274

12. Arguments for open citations
• Essential for literature search, research evaluation, research planning, etc.
• Improving reproducibility of scientometric analyses
• Improving transparency of scientometric analyses
• Improving equity in the scientometric community
• Citations are part of the commons
11

13. Open citations:
How and when?
12

14. Two approaches to open citations
13
Open/limited/closed

15. Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC)
14

16. Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC)
15

17. Support for I4OC
16

18. Crossref vs. Web of Science and Scopus
17

19. Crossref vs. Web of Science and Scopus
18

20. Crossref vs. Web of Science and Scopus
19

21. OpenCitations
20

22. Large publishers not supporting I4OC
21

23. Elsevier
22
Nature News, April 6, 2017
Nature, 2018, 553, 129

24. Elsevier
23

25. Putting pressure on publishers
• Funders
• Research institutions
• Authors and editorial boards
• European Union
24

26. Dimensions
25
• Freely accessible
• Including Elsevier references

27. Visualizing open citation data
26

28. Visualizing open citation data
27

29. Workshop on Open Citations
28
https://workshop-oc.github.io

30. From open citations to open metadata
29
www.metadata2020.org

31. Supporting open
citations
30

32. Supporting open citations
31
www.issi-society.org/open-citations-letter/

33. Supporting open citations
32
www.issi-society.org/open-citations-letter/
April 26, 2018:
• 324 signatories
• 46 countries

34. How do Sweden and the Netherlands stand out from
the rest of the world?
33

35. Support for open citations
34
www.issi-society.org/blog/posts/2018/april/open-citations-to-open-science/

36. Leading role for Sweden and the Netherlands in
supporting open citations
35
Country Signatures
Inhabitants
in millions
Signatures
per 1 million inhabitants
USA 41 324.5 0.13
Netherlands 35 17.0 2.05
Sweden 25 9.9 2.52
Spain 24 46.4 0.52
UK 24 66.2 0.36
China 19 1409.5 0.01
Germany 16 82.1 0.19
France 12 65.0 0.18
Brazil 11 209.3 0.05
Norway 10 5.3 1.88
Italy 8 59.4 0.13
India 7 1339.2 0.01
Denmark 6 5.7 1.05
Finland 5 5.5 0.91
Switzerland 5 8.5 0.59
Canada 5 36.6 0.14

37. 36
Thank you for your attention!