It's your software! Get it cited the way you want!

TL;DR

This paper discusses how software developers can ensure their software is cited correctly and trackably by using proper citation methods and metadata files like CITATION.cff or codemeta.json.

Contribution

It provides guidance on creating and placing standard metadata files to improve software citation and tracking in research.

Findings

Using metadata files enhances software citation accuracy.

Proper placement of citation information aids in tracking and counting citations.

Guidelines for creating and using metadata files like CITATION.cff or codemeta.json.

Abstract

Are others using software you've written in their research and citing it as you want it to be cited? Software can be cited in different ways, some good, and some not good at all for tracking and counting citations in indexers such as ADS and Clarivate's Web of Science. Generally, these resources need to match citations to resources, such as journal articles or software records, they ingest. This presentation covered common reasons as to why a code might not be cited well (in a trackable/countable way), which citation methods are trackable, how to specify this information for your software, and where this information should be placed. It also covered standard software metadata files, how to create them, and how to use them. Creating a metadata file, such as a CITATION.cff or codemeta.json, and adding it to the root of your code repo is easy to do with the ASCL's metadata file creation overlay, and will help out anyone wanting to give you credit for your computational method, whether it's a huge carefully-written and tested package, or a short quick-and-dirty-but-oh-so-useful code.