Opaque data citation: Actual citation practice and its implication for tracking data use

Abstract

In the social and behavioral science literature, much data attribution is incomplete and does not include persistent identifiers. Instead, authors mention data opaquely. Without explicit data citation, a publication cannot automatically or definitively link to a data source. The human effort required to find, interpret, and link opaque citations is costly and inefficient, especially at scale. So data use often goes untracked, and data creators go uncredited. Before it can change, current practice must first be understood. This poster categorizes actual ways in which authors refer to data. ICPSR is a social and behavioral science data repository in the United States, which curates and disseminates over 10,000 data collections and attempts to track their reuse. The examples in this poster are taken from the ICPSR Bibliography of Data-related Literature, a searchable database that provides curated two-way links between data archived at ICPSR and over 75,000 scholarly publications.