In-code citation practices in open research software libraries

Abstract

• In-code citation practices in open research software libraries remain unexplored. • This paper studies the availability and consistency of in-code citations. • Findings suggest that most of the libraries studied use at least one. • Citations were missing important information and had inconsistencies. • Few libraries had a systematic method for linking references and in-code citations. While several aspects of open research software libraries have been studied, their in-code citation practices remain an unexplored area. In-code citations are citations of published scientific contributions added in the programming source code of research software libraries. In this paper, 73 such libraries are analyzed to determine the availability and consistency of in-code citations and reference sections. Findings indicate that 54 (73.9 %) of these libraries have at least one in-code citation. However, 47 had at least one incomplete citation and 89.3 % of libraries with several citations used multiple formats for citations. For reference sections, 36 of the libraries investigated in this study had at least one section. Still, inconsistencies in formats were also present as 83.3 % of the libraries with two or more sections used multiple formats for the sections, which may prevent automated programmers from indexing and collecting the list of references. Most importantly, this study investigates the availability of a systematic method that allows for the linking of references and in-code citations. Findings indicate that only six of the libraries had such a method, although many did not fully implement the method.