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12-14 November 2024, Costa Rica and Online

RDA 23rd Plenary Meeting (RDA P23) | Sustainable Science

Recommendations for handling Complex Citations

  • RDA Complex Citation WG -

Collaborative Notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17O97PcO4l1Oj3zIEN3I4tve9ZqD5JBItRDA Complex Citation WG: https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/complex-citations-working-group/

Draft Recommendation:�Agarwal, D., Ayliffe, J., J. H. Buck, J., Damerow, J., Parton, G., Stall, S., Stockhause, M., & Wyborn, L. (2024). Complex Citation Working Group Recommendation (Version 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14106603

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Agenda

  1. Welcome and Introduction of the Complex Citations WG (5 min)
  2. What is a “Complex Citation”? (10 min)
    1. Problem
    2. Why we need a new solution
    3. Overview of pilot use cases
  3. Introduce WG’s draft recommendations - R1 - R10 (45 min with discussion and Menti feedback)
  4. Overview of Workflow Actors - Roles and Responsibilities (10 min + 5 discussion)
  5. What next? (10 min)
    • Moving from requirement to implementation with Workflow Actors
    • Feedback on the type of group that comes next
  6. Closing Remarks (5 min)

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What is a “Complex Citation”?

The Problems to be solved:

  • Citing subsets of larger datasets
  • Underpinning data for graphs, chapters
  • Enable attribution of credit
  • Citing larger group of datasets
  • Compression of knowledge graph levels
  • User base beyond academia
  • Traceability
  • Transparency of content used

Motivation:

Complex Citation is to enable the creators, and other contributors for data, digital objects and physical samples to receive credit and better track the continued and growing value of a digital asset born from its original funding.

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What is a “Complex Citation”? - Initial Use Cases

British Oceanographic Data Centre

Justin Buck & James Ayliffe

Intergovernmental Panel �on Climate Change

Martina Stockhause

AmeriFlux & FLUXNET

Deb Agarwal / Joan Damerow

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What is a “Complex Citation”? - Workflow Actors

Workflow Actors

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Introduce WG’s draft recommendations

New Vocabulary:

  • Complex Citation Object (CCO) - a new type of Digital Object Identifier (DOI) supported by the DOI Registration Agencies that includes, as its primary content, a list of Linked Digital Objects.

  • Linked Digital Object - the metadata necessary to identify the digital objects that support the research, or scholarly product. This includes data, software, physical samples, images, and video. This does not include the scholarly literature normally included in the Reference section of a paper.

Menti:

Code: 3605 3622

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Introduce WG’s draft recommendations: R1-R4 “must”

R1: Each Complex Citation Object must capture a sufficient level of granularity to ensure the credit and provenance to the specific cited material is included.

R2: Each Complex Citation Object must enable the mechanism of automated attribution and credit of each of the individual objects that are referenced.

R3: Each Complex Citation Object must be a clearly demarcated object that is not a primary output and should not accrue credit itself.

R4: Each Complex Citation Object must be identifiable, referenceable, remain stable and resolvable through use of a suitable PID mechanism. As such they may not be deleted. The reference to the linked digital objects of a complex citation object cannot be changed; any reference update to the content would require a new version to be issued (i.e., a new complex citation object).

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Introduce WG’s draft recommendations: R5-R8 “should”

R5: Each Complex Citation Object should employ a suitable versioning mechanism to support supersedence.�

R6: Each Complex Citation Object should adhere to a standardized structure, agnostic of� any particular provider, utilizing linked data defined elements to ensure interoperability� and machine actionability.

R7: Each Complex Citation Object should primarily support the use of Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) for the Linked Digital Objects within a Complex Citation where possible, but permit non PID-items to be provided via a stable resolvable reference, e.g. URLs.

R8: Each Complex Citation Object should be sufficiently flexible to allow easy adoption by providers of complex citation objects for a wide range of use-cases.

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Introduce WG’s draft recommendations: R9-R10 “should”

R9: Each Complex Citation Object should be provided, such that its metadata and content are always as open and accessible as possible/reasonable.

R9.1: The Complex Citation Object license applies only to itself and does not transfer� to any of the Linked Digital Objects.

R10: Each Complex Citation Object should have sufficient provenance metadata for its creation.

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What next? - Can Complex Citation solve the problem?

Use Case: Complex Citation

Requirements

Meets Requirement

Comment

Requirement 1 (citing subsets of larger datasets)

Y

Allows large listings of linked digital objects from subsets of large datasets

Requirement 2 (Underpinning data for graphs, chapters)

Y

Allows graphs to identify data used for the graph

Enable credit

Y

Through the provision of authors in the linked data objects allows the attribution of credit to the underpinning data bu needs further work

Citing larger group of datasets

Y

Allows large listings of linked digital objects to collate information akin to one larger dataset

Compression of knowledge graph levels

Y

Provides nodes that allow the compression of the knowledge graph to be unzipped by indexers

User base beyond academia

Y

Complex Citation Objects are to be provider agnostic so as to allow non academics to create their own Complex Citation Objects and could be used for gray or white papers

Traceability (historical connections between data, objects and citation outputs)

Y

By using DOI services will allow historic traceability and transparency of data used even if data are no longer available i addition to graph connections

Knowledge graph to be limited to 2 levels

Indexers require a restriction to the knowledge graph to ensure it is usable, manageable and sustainable. The how of the unzipping of the Complex Citation Object for the graph and interaction with indexers. _

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What next? - Implementation!

  • How?
    • Join the WG as we move forward!
    • Be an implementer!

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THANK� YOU

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