Does data citation aid provenance? --- An update from ESIP

Abstract

Formal data citation is a growing practice increasingly required by scientific journals. Roughly a decade ago, the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) began developing formal guidelines for data citation including acknowledgement of authors and archives and careful use of persistent identifiers (PIDs). Many Earth science data centers now provide formal citation text and PIDs for their data sets, typically a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). A central purpose of data citation (amongst many) is to aid scientific reproducibility through direct, unambiguous reference to the precise data used in a particular study, i.e., to aid provenance tracking. How has that worked in practice? ESIP is now in the process of revising and updating their guidelines and seeks to ensure that data citation meets its stated purpose. This presentation explores whether and how formal citation and the the use of PIDs for data sets has improved the tracking of data provenance. For example, is there is some commonality in the nature and granularity of objects that are assigned PIDs? We review how the guidelines are being revised to further enhance the transparency and reusability of data.