Citations to data

From GRDI2020

This is a GRDI recommendation; return to Main Page with all the challenges or to recommendations

Context and challenges

Without elevating publication of (good quality) data to the same level as publishing scientific articles, the individual scientists will not have the incentive to address issues related to Data Interoperability, Data Discovery, Data Provenance and Trust and so on.

At the same time, the value of GRDIs depend to a large extent to the number of scientist, communities etc. using them, and the amount of reusable and efficiently preservable data they store in the repositories.

Recommendation

The GRDIs should build a strong, reliable and comprehensive mechanisms to track citations to data and use them as mechanisms to draw researchers into GRDI.

Stakeholders and Impact

The main stakeholders are individual researchers and the providers of GRDI services. For the former, the citation mechanism will reduce the tension between investing in new research activities and preparing the data from the ongoing projects to a form where it can form a base for the work of other scientist. Without the citation mechanism there is an disincentive for the "data cleaning" activities.

For the GRDIs the citation mechanism should be seen as an important tool for achieving critical mass of user and data.