Data credit distribution: A new method to estimate databases impact

Abstract

Abstract It is widely accepted that data is fundamental for research and should therefore be cited as textual scientific publications. However, issues like data citation, handling and counting the credit generated by such citations, remain open research questions. Data credit is a new measure of value built on top of data citation, which enables us to annotate data with a value, representing its importance. Data credit can be considered as a new tool that, together with traditional citations, helps to recognize the value of data and its creators in a world that is ever more depending on data. In this paper we define data credit distribution (DCD) as a process by which credit generated by citations is given to the single elements of a database. We focus on a scenario where a paper cites data from a database obtained by issuing a query. The citation generates credit which is then divided among the database entities responsible for generating the query output. One key aspect of our work is to credit not only the explicitly cited entities, but even those that contribute to their existence, but which are not accounted in the query output. We propose a data credit distribution strategy (CDS) based on data provenance and implement a system that uses the information provided by data citations to distribute the credit in a relational database accordingly. As use case and for evaluation purposes, we adopt the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to Pharmacology (GtoPdb), a curated relational database. We show how credit can be used to highlight areas of the database that are frequently used. Moreover, we also underline how credit rewards data and authors based on their research impact, and not merely on the number of citations. This can lead to designing new bibliometrics for data citations.