A protocol for exchanging scientific citations

Brian Matthewsa, Mark Borkumb, Simon Colesb, Alastair Duncana, Philip Hunterc, Catherine
Jonesa, Cameron Neylona,
aSTFC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, HSIC, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0QX,
bSchool of Chemistry, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ,
cEdinburgh University Library, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LJ
brian.matthews@stfc.ac.uk

Abstract

Data and publications are major outputs of
science, but are typically managed in different ways in
institutional repositories and data archives. In this
paper we discuss a protocol for exchanging cross-
citations between data and publications, so that the
links between can be tracked and used. We describe
an simple instance of such a protocol based on the
well-known Trackback protocol, and describe an
example of how the protocol can be used to exchange
citations between a data archive and a publication
repository. We conclude by discussing the
generalisation of the protocol and its implications for
scholarly discourse.

1 Introduction
Publications and data are among the major outputs
of scientific research. Traditionally, the data
component is kept private to the researcher, but it is
increasingly recognised that by sharing this data with
other researchers, advances in scientific progress can
be encouraged, and the peer review process made more
robust. This has been promoted in particular disciplines
such as social and environmental sciences which have
invested in data centres to maintain data sets.
Furthermore, research organisations increasingly
recognise that tracking outputs is a key indicator of
success, a factor which has motivated the
establishment of institutional repositories.
The different processes and expectations associated
with data and publications, and different maturity for
their support have meant that different approaches have
been taken for their management. Publications are
typically in institutional repositories or publisher‟s
archives; data in subject based archives curated by
subject specialists, as supplementary information on
publishers‟ websites or on project or personal websites
with little or no long term sustainability plan.
Publications tend to go through formal peer review and
the assignment of formal identifiers by a publisher.
Data tend to have more ad hoc quality control
procedures ranging from those associated with a
subject data archive to virtually none at all.
However, there are clear benefits in tracing the
connections between publications and data.
Researchers can inspect the data to verify or add to the
results of a publication. Data depositors can track the
users of their data and how it is analysed, gaining
recognition for providing useful data. Data archives
and research institutions can assess the value of
making datasets available by tracking their use. The
value of these links has been recognised; for example,
the SIRIS report on the interaction between subject and
institutional repositories [1] identified that providing a
mechanism to link between different types of material
is a key enabler of repository interaction.
Within the JISC funded project CLADDIER1 a
notion of a Citation Notification Service was
developed to propagate citation references and links
between different types of repository. CLADDIER
adapted and extended the well-known Trackback
protocol to carry metadata suitable for citation
notification [2]. This extended protocol was
implemented in the STFC ePubs institutional
repository and the BADC repository as a proof of the
concept and was first trialed in the atmospheric science
domain. In the follow up Storelink project2, the
notification protocol was implemented in the well
known ePrints, Fedora and DSpace repositories, with
trials in social science and crystallography.
In this paper, we motivate the use of such a
notification protocol to exchange citation information
between repositories, outline the protocol based on
trackback, and describe a case study of exchanging
citation information between a publication repository

1 Citation, Location, and Deposition In Discipline &
Institutional Repositories (CLADDIER)
http://claddier.badc.ac.uk/trac
2http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitalrep
ositories2007/storelink.aspx