Libraries play an important role in driving adoption of open data, and they have an increasing focus on understanding dataset usage and impact. This information is key in order for institutions to gain information about the diverse research outputs contributed by their researchers, and to inform institutional strategy around research data management. Librarians also rely on insights on data usage to enhance their data advocacy efforts, showcase and support the expertise of the data workforce, and advance recognition and reward of data contributions.
Data Citations Per Repository Over Time 2013-2024. Source: 10.60804/yxna-f837
In spite of the importance of these insights, reporting on the reach and impact of data often represents a challenge for academic libraries, due to the resources required to identify connections between datasets and other outputs, and the fact that this information is often obscured, incomplete, or siloed across different platforms and systems. One response to this need is to leverage data citations as indicators of dataset utilization: having access to data citations at scale would greatly facilitate libraries’ ability to report on data contributions from their institution.
To showcase the value that data-citation analysis can provide to institutions, we collaborated with Jamie Wittenberg (University Libraries, University of Colorado Boulder) and Kristi Holmes (Galter Health Sciences Library and Learning Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) to analyse the use of datasets from Northwestern University and the University of Colorado Boulder, utilizing data citation information from open aggregates like the Data Citation Corpus. The analysis involves data citations for both institutions identified through the current store of citations in the Data Citation Corpus, as well as data citations on Europe PMC for articles that had at least one affiliation corresponding to one of the two institutions.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
