Data citation

Lee-Ann Coleman, British Library

Life or death?

Speed counts in 2011

May: Outbreak of antibiotic-resistant E. coli in Germany

Subsequent race to sequence and analyse the genome

2 June: BGI released the sequence into the public domain on GIGAScience with a DataCite DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5524/100001

28 June: Rolf Daniel lab publish first analysis of genome in the Archives of Microbiology: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00203-011-0725-6

BGI blog: lessons from E.coli DOI

“On top of the good feeling and positive coverage obtained … these novel forms of pre-publication data release did not prevent the acquisition of more traditional forms of scientific credit – publication in prestigious scientific and medical journals.”

Good research is built on good data

Patterns of information use and exchange: case studies of researchers in the life sciences

A report by the Research Information Network and the British Library, 2009

Patterns of information use and exchange: case studies of researchers in the life sciences

‘Impressionistic’ taxonomy of case study data

Patterns of information use and exchange: case studies of researchers in the life sciences. A report by RIN and the British Library 2009

What is citation?

A source quoted in an essay, report, or book to clarify, illustrate, or substantiate a point.

Motivations for citing

Garfield, E. (1996) When to cite. Library Quarterly, 66 (4): 449-458

Garfield identified •Paying homage•Giving credit•Identifying methodology•Background reading •Correcting own work•Correcting other’s work•Criticising previous work•Alerting re: forthcoming work•Providing leads•Authenticating data •Identifying the original paper•Arguing with others•Disputing the work of others•+more…

Motivations for citing cont’d

Small gave a smaller list• Refuted (negative)• Noted only (perfunctory)• Reviewed (compared)• Applied (used)• Supported (substantiated)

Small, H.G. (1982) Citation context and citation analysis. In Dervin, B., Voight, M. (Eds), Progress in Communication Sciences. Norwood, NJ.

The benefits of citing data

• Check facts• Obtain easier access to data• Enable re-use of data• Provide acknowledgement to a

wider group – the data centre, curators etc.

• Support openness and transparency

Reich NG, Perl TM, Cummings DAT, Lessler J (2011) Visualizing Clinical Evidence: Citation Networks for the Incubation Periods of Respiratory Viral Infections. PLoS ONE 6(4): e19496. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0019496

Data(Cite) to the rescue?