Documentation

Data and software citation deposit guide

Data and software citations link publications to their supporting data, making both the research itself and the research process more transparent and reproducible. Data citations are references to data just as bibliographic citations make reference to other scholarly sources.

Members are encouraged to include data and software citations in the deposit of bibliographic references for each publication. Follow the general process for depositing references and apply tags as applicable. Once deposited, data citations across journals (and publishers) are then aggregated and made freely available for the community to retrieve and reuse in a single, shared location.

Data and software links may also be asserted in the relationship section of the metadata deposit. This is recommended when you want to establish a specific relationship, such as isSupplementedBy for supplemental material. The two methods are independent, and can be used individually or together.

Sending this metadata to Crossref makes it easier for the research community to see links between different research outputs and work with these outputs. It also makes it easier to see these citations, so that researchers can get credit for their data and the sharing of that data.

We collect these citations and make them freely available via our APIs in multiple interfaces (REST, OAI-­PMH, OpenURL) and formats (XML, JSON). Data is made openly available to a wide range of organizations and individuals across the extended research ecosystem including funders, research organisations, technology and service providers, indexers, and many others.

Bibliographic references

As part of content registration, members add data and software citations into the bibliographic references, following the general process for depositing references.

Full data or software citations can be deposited as unstructured references. See FORCE11’s community best practice: Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, Software Citation Principles, and advice on placement of citations.

You can employ any number of reference tags currently accepted by Crossref, but as good practice we recommend tagging the identifier for the code or dataset as shown below, and including the type attribute (supported as of schema version 5.4.0:

<citation type="dataset" key="ref2">
  <doi>10.5061/dryad.684v0</doi>
  <cYear>2017</cYear>
  <author>Morinha F, Dávila JA, Estela B, Cabral JA, Frías Ó, González JL, Travassos P, Carvalho D, Milá B, Blanco G</author>
</citation>

Providing the ’type’ attribute will help easily identify data and software citations, useful but essential for citations that may otherwise be difficult to match or define if a DOI is not provided.

Relationships

Establishing data and software citations via relation type enables precise tagging of the dataset and its specific relationship to the research results published. To tag the data and software citation in the metadata deposit, we ask for the description of the dataset and software (optional), dataset and software identifier and identifier type (DOI, PMID, PMCID, PURL, ARK, Handle, UUID, ECLI, and URI), and relationship type. In general, use the relation type references for data and software resources.

To specify that the data or software resource was generated as part of the research results, use isSupplementedBy. Being this specific is optional, but can support scientific validation and research funding management. See the list of controlled options for accepted identifier types.

Examples of asserting a relationship to data and software in the metadata deposit

DatasetSnippet of deposit XML containing link
Dataset or software generated as part of research article: Data from: Extreme genetic structure in a social bird species despite high dispersal capacity. Database: Dryad Digital Repository``DOI: https://0-doi-org.lib.rivier.edu/10.5061/dryad.684v0<program xmlns="http://0-www-crossref-org.lib.rivier.edu/relations.xsd"> `<related_item>` <description>Data from: Extreme genetic structure in a social bird species despite high dispersal capacity</description> `<inter_work_relation relationship-type="isSupplementedBy" identifier-type="doi">10.5061/dryad.684v0</inter_work_relation>` </related_item> `` </program>

Example of data citation as relationship (full metadata deposit)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<doi_batch version="4.4.0" xmlns="http://0-www-crossref-org.lib.rivier.edu/schema/4.4.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://0-www-crossref-org.lib.rivier.edu/schema/4.4.0 http://0-www-crossref-org.lib.rivier.edu/schemas/crossref4.4.0.xsd">
  <head>
	<doi_batch_id>20170807</doi_batch_id>
	<timestamp>2017080715731</timestamp>
	<depositor>
   	<depositor_name>Crossref</depositor_name>
   	<email_address>support@crossref.org</email_address>
	</depositor>
	<registrant>Crossref</registrant>
  </head>
  <body>
	<journal>
   	<journal_metadata language="en">
      	<full_title>Molecular Ecology</full_title>
      	<abbrev_title>Mol Ecol</abbrev_title>
      	<issn>09621083</issn>
   	</journal_metadata>
   	<journal_issue>
      	<publication_date media_type="print">
         	<month>05</month>
         	<year>2017</year>
      	</publication_date>
      	<journal_volume>
         	<volume>26</volume>
      	</journal_volume>
      	<issue>10</issue>
   	</journal_issue>
   	<journal_article publication_type="full_text">
      	<titles>
         	<title>Extreme genetic structure in a social bird species despite high dispersal capacity</title>
      	</titles>
      	<contributors>
         	<person_name contributor_role="author" sequence="first">
           	<given_name>Francisco</given_name>
           	<surname>Morinha</surname>
           	<affiliation>Laboratory of Applied Ecology; Centre for Research and Technology of Agro-Environment and Biological Sciences (CITAB); University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD); Quinta de Prados 5000-801 Vila Real Portugal</affiliation>
<affiliation>Morinha Lab - Laboratory of Biodiversity and Molecular Genetics; Rua Dr. José Figueiredo, lote L-2, Lj B5 5000-562 Vila Real Portugal</affiliation>
         	</person_name>
         	<person_name contributor_role="author" sequence="additional">
            	<given_name>José A.</given_name>
            	<surname>Dávila</surname>
            	<affiliation>Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos; IREC (CSIC, UCLM, JCCM); Ciudad Real Spain</affiliation>
         	</person_name>
         	<person_name contributor_role="author" sequence="additional">
            	<given_name>Estela</given_name>
            	<surname>Bastos</surname>
            	<affiliation>Laboratory of Applied Ecology; Centre for Research and Technology of Agro-Environment and Biological Sciences (CITAB); University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD); Quinta de Prados 5000-801 Vila Real Portugal</affiliation>
<affiliation>Department of Genetics and Biotechnology; School of Life and Environmental Sciences; University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD); Quinta de Prados 5000-801 Vila Real Portugal</affiliation>
         	</person_name>
      	</contributors>
      	<publication_date media_type="print">
         	<month>05</month>
         	<year>2017</year>
      	</publication_date>
      	<publication_date media_type="online">
         	<month>03</month>
         	<day>13</day>
         	<year>2017</year>
      	</publication_date>
      	<pages>
         	<first_page>2812</first_page>
         	<last_page>2825</last_page>
      	</pages>
      	<program xmlns="http://0-www-crossref-org.lib.rivier.edu/relations.xsd">
         	<related_item>
           	<description>Data from: Extreme genetic structure in a social bird species despite high dispersal capacity</description>
           	<inter_work_relation relationship-type="references" identifier-type="doi">10.5061/dryad.684v0</inter_work_relation>
         	</related_item>
      	</program>
      	<archive_locations>
         	<archive name="Portico"/>
      	</archive_locations>
      	<doi_data>
         	<doi>10.1111/mec.14069</doi>
         	<resource>http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/mec.14069</resource>
      	</doi_data>
   	</journal_article>
	</journal>
  </body>
</doi_batch>

Example of data citation as relation (resource-only deposit)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <doi_batch version="4.4.2" xmlns="http://0-www-crossref-org.lib.rivier.edu/doi_resources_schema/4.4.2" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://0-www-crossref-org.lib.rivier.edu/doi_resources_schema/4.4.2 https://0-data-crossref-org.lib.rivier.edu/schemas/doi_resources4.4.2.xsd">
    <head>
       <doi_batch_id>123456</doi_batch_id>
          <depositor>
          <depositor_name>Crossref</depositor_name>
          <email_address>support@crossref.org</email_address>
       </depositor>
    </head>
    <body>
       <doi_relations>
          <doi>10.1111/xxxx.xxxx</doi>
          <program xmlns="https://0-www-crossref-org.lib.rivier.edu/relations.xsd">
             <related_item>
             <description>Data from: Extreme genetic structure in a social bird species despite high dispersal capacity</description>
             <inter_work_relation relationship-type="references" identifier-type="doi">10.5061/dryad.684v0</inter_work_relation>
             </related_item>
          </program>
       </doi_relations>
    </body>
  </doi_batch>

Page owner: Patricia Feeney   |   Last updated 2025-March-25