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Bug #5499

closed

citation format odd for metacat data sets

Added by Matt Jones over 12 years ago. Updated over 12 years ago.

Status:
Resolved
Priority:
Normal
Category:
metacat
Target version:
Start date:
09/27/2011
Due date:
% Done:

0%

Estimated time:
Bugzilla-Id:
5499

Description

Submitting on behalf of Gail... I agree with her assesment -- what are we rendering citations this way. Somehow this escaped my attention before.

From Gail:

We are wondering why the recommended citation includes the owner’s institution - see for example http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat/datastar.11.13/knb, with a recommended data set citation at the top of the metadata that shows as follows:

Rudstam L of Cornell Biological Field Station and Jackson J of Cornell Biological Field Station.Ice Cover data for Oneida and Cazenovia Lakes, New York, 1826-2011. datastar.11.13 (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat/datastar.11.13/knb).

Why not just:
Rudstam L and Jackson J. Ice Cover data for Oneida and Cazenovia Lakes, New York, 1826-2011. datastar.11.13 (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat/datastar.11.13/knb).

Thanks for any insight or fixes,
Gail

Gail Steinhart
Research Data & Environmental Sciences Librarian
Albert R. Mann Library
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853

Actions #1

Updated by gastil gastil over 12 years ago

Inclusion of the institution seems appropriate for a dataset citation. Granted, it is not in journal article citations. But datasets, especially LTER datasets, are more a product of the institution.

For MCR LTER eml display I added some xslt to show how we would like our datasets cited. It is slightly different from the lter metacat skin.

ie.
Edmunds, P of Moorea Coral Reef LTER. 2011. MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Long-term Population and Community Dynamics: Corals. knb-lter-mcr.4.25 (http://metacat.lternet.edu/knb/metacat/knb-lter-mcr.4.25/lter ).

or, for the example earlier,
Rudstam, L and J. Jackson of Cornell Biological Field Station. . Ice Cover data for Oneida and Cazenovia Lakes, New York, 1826-2011. datastar.11.13 (http://metacat.lternet.edu/knb/metacat/datastar.11.13/lter ).

The extra period appears for datastar.11.13 because there is no pubDate.

Is there is a community standard for dataset citation format?

Actions #2

Updated by Matt Jones over 12 years ago

There isn't a community standard as far as I know. There are people working on proposing such a standard (DataCite, see for example http://libguides.lib.msu.edu/citedata). I think one key is to make it as similar to a journal citation as possible to increase familiarity and usability.

I agree that citing the organization is useful. I think this should be done in one of two ways:

1) If the institution should be attributed as an author/creator of the data, then list them in like any other author in the citation:

Edmunds, P and Moorea Coral Reef LTER. 2011. MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Long-term Population and Community Dynamics: Corals. knb-lter-mcr.4.25 (http://metacat.lternet.edu/knb/metacat/knb-lter-mcr.4.25/lter).

Rudstam L., Jackson J., and Cornell Biological Field Station. Ice Cover data for Oneida and Cazenovia Lakes, New York, 1826-2011. datastar.11.13 (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat/datastar.11.13/knb).

2) Alternatively, if the institution did not author the dataset, but instead published it, then list them in the Publisher field and then the citation should be:

Edmunds, P. 2011. MCR LTER: Coral Reef: Long-term Population and Community Dynamics: Corals. Moorea Coral Reef LTER. knb-lter-mcr.4.25 (http://metacat.lternet.edu/knb/metacat/knb-lter-mcr.4.25/lter).

Rudstam L., Jackson J. Ice Cover data for Oneida and Cazenovia Lakes, New York, 1826-2011. Cornell Biological Field Station. datastar.11.13 (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/metacat/datastar.11.13/knb).

In the second example the organization is listed as the publisher.

Actions #3

Updated by ben leinfelder over 12 years ago

Okay, what's the final decision here?

We have givenName, surName and an organizationName. It sounds like the citation Matt last suggested would treat a person at an organization as two distinct authors (The person's surName and the organizationName). Is this okay?

Actions #4

Updated by ben leinfelder over 12 years ago

Does there need to be an XSLT parameter that allows different skins to specify whether they want organizations treated as authors or treated as publishers?

Actions #5

Updated by Matt Jones over 12 years ago

No, I don't think that's quite right. If a Creator contains an individualName, use that and not the organization. If the Creator contains only an organizationName, use that. In the end, the citation author list should look like a normal journal citation, in most cases only listing names of people.

Actions #6

Updated by ben leinfelder over 12 years ago

After looking more closely at the code, I think we already have what you propose -- it just depends on the content of the creator[s] field.
1. If only individualName is given, then that is the creator
2. If only organizationName is given, then that is the creator
3. if BOTH are given, then the "of <organizationName>" format is used.

Actions #7

Updated by Matt Jones over 12 years ago

Close. All that needs to change is delete #3 -- if BOTH are provided, only list the individualName and omit the organizationName.

Actions #8

Updated by ben leinfelder over 12 years ago

added to EML project and updated the Metacat build to pull from that tagged style update.

Actions #9

Updated by Redmine Admin almost 11 years ago

Original Bugzilla ID was 5499

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