Practice meets Principle: Tracking Software and Data Citations to Zenodo DOIs

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how data and software citations to Zenodo DOIs are currently practiced, revealing gaps between actual practices and proposed standards, and suggests steps for better implementation of citation principles.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of 5,456 Zenodo citations, highlighting discrepancies with citation standards and proposing practical steps for adherence.

Findings

Current citation practices do not match standards

Many citations lack proper attribution to software versions

Recommendations need refinement to improve citation quality

Abstract

Data and software citations are crucial for the transparency of research results and for the transmission of credit. But they are hard to track, because of the absence of a common citation standard. As a consequence, the FORCE11 recently proposed data and software citation principles as guidance for authors. Zenodo is recognized for the implementation of DOIs for software on a large scale. The minting of complementary DOIs for the version and concept allows measuring the impact of dynamic software. This article investigates characteristics of 5,456 citations to Zenodo data and software that were captured by the Asclepias Broker in January 2019. We analyzed the current state of data and software citation practices and the quality of software citation recommendations with regard to the impact of recent standardization efforts. Our findings prove that current citation practices and recommendations do not match proposed citation standards. We consequently suggest practical first steps towards the implementation of the software citation principles.