Streamlining and standardizing software citations with The Software Citation Station

Introduction to the show: ident: Astrophysics. The day in astrophysics: observations, models and what the data forces.

Vera: I'm Vera.

Jocelyn: And I'm Jocelyn, here with Subrahmanyan.

Vera: We're looking at the paper: "Streamlining and standardizing software citations with The Software Citation Station".

Jocelyn: Here's the gist of the paper. Software is crucial for the advancement of astronomy especially in the context of rapidly growing datasets that increasingly require algorithm and pipeline development to process the data and produce results<ref:2406.04405#pg2> To encourage, streamline, and standardize the process of citing software in academic work such as publications we introduce ‘The Software Citation Station’: a publicly available website and tool to quickly find or add software citations<ref:2406.04405#pg3> This paper introduces The Software Citation Station, a publicly available website and tool designed to streamline and standardize the processing of citing software in academic work<ref:2406.04405#pg4> It addresses the lack of a standardized citation practice for software, which leaves it to the software author to point readers to the citation mechanism<ref:2406.04405#pg2> The Problem with Current Software Citation Practices Software development has become an essential part of every sub-field of astronomy, but is often not adequately supported in astronomy<ref:2406.04405#pg2> Citations are an important tool in science and astronomy to build upon and properly attribute and credit earlier work, value authorship, motivate funding, enable peer-review, validate and reproduce findings, support collaboration and community, and encourage reuse and building on work of others<ref:2406.04405#pg2> While there exists a welldeveloped ecosystem of tools and services to assist with citations to traditional publications, such as NASA/ADS and ArXiv, this infrastructure does not work nearly so well for software citation<ref:2406.04405#pg2> A major issue is that software lacks a standardized citation practice, leaving it to the software author to point readers to the citation mechanism<ref:2406.04405#pg2> Many authors still do not include proper software citations because it can be challenging to find the citation for many tools or users might not be aware that their software has references<ref:2406.04405#pg3> Different software users might end up using different key words or references, making it often difficult to identify and quantify contributions of software and give proper credits to all software contributors<ref:2406.04405#pg3> Core Functionality of The Software Citation Station The primary goal of The Software Citation Station is to streamline and standardise the processing of citing software in academic work<ref:2406.04405#pg4> The site’s core functionality is designed to be a simple three-step process<ref:2406.04405#pg4> 1.

Vera: Users first select the software that they have used in their academic work in panel 1<ref:2406.04405#pg4> One can search for particular keywords or package names, as well as filter by category or programming language to refine the list<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Additionally, one can right-click each item to see further details about the package such as a short description, a link to the documentation and the associated Zenodo record<ref:2406.04405#pg4> 2.

Jocelyn: As each package is selected, if it is indexed on Zenodo, The Software Citation Station queries the Zenodo API for the latest list of available versions of the software and populates a dropdown with the options<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Users can then select the version used in their research for each package<ref:2406.04405#pg4> 3.

Vera: As this selection occurs, an acknowledgement and associated BibTeX is generated in panel 3<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Users can directly copy the acknowledgement into their LATEX manuscript, either in the acknowledgements section or, for AAS journals, in the Software section<ref:2406.04405#pg4> The BibTeX can either be downloaded directly as a BibTeX file or copied to the clipboard to insert into another file<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Flexibility and Customization There is not a universally accepted software citation standard and as such in many cases software packages have differing requirements in how they are cited<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Many code request that users write a specifically worded acknowledgement in their work in addition to certain citations<ref:2406.04405#pg4> We allow for flexibility in how a software package is cited and arbitrary customisation is possible when adding a new package to The Software Citation Station<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Handling Package Dependencies It is very common for open-source projects to depend on other software packages, and it is important to consistently cite dependencies of software<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Therefore, each time a package is selected on The Software Citation Station, its dependencies (and dependencies of those dependencies) that are not already selected will be added to the list of packages to cite<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Streamlining New Software Submissions The site includes a form for submitting new software packages, which guides users through the submission process<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Each package requires a data entry of the following form detailing information such as tags, name, language, and description<ref:2406.04405#pg4> The form is designed to streamline the submission of new packages and catch simple errors automatically<ref:2406.04405#pg4> Future Work Directions On the longer term it would be beneficial to integrate The Software Citation Station with other existing efforts to improve citations of software<ref:2406.04405#pg4> This includes connecting or integrating our website as part of ArXiv, ADS, and/or ASCL, as well as connecting to citation software like makecite (Price-Whelan et al.

Title and authors: Vera: The authors mention in the introduction that this is happening because it’s challenging to find citations for many tools, or sometimes users just aren't aware their software has references.

Jocelyn: They highlight that different users might end up using different keywords or references, which makes it really hard to quantify who contributed what software.

The paper's summary: Vera: So the paper’s summary explains that the goal is to streamline and standardize how software citations get processed in academic work. It lays out how this station works step-by-step for users.

Jocelyn: They describe the core functionality as a simple three-step process: first you select your software, then it checks Zenodo for available versions, and finally, it generates an acknowledgement and BibTeX file for you to copy into your manuscript.

Subrahmanyan: It sounds like the mechanism involves users selecting a package, and then the system queries the Zenodo API to pull in all the latest available versions of that software.

Vera: And what’s interesting is that once you select a version, it generates both an acknowledgement and a BibTeX file automatically in panel three.

Jocelyn: That BibTeX can either be downloaded directly as a file or copied straight to your clipboard to insert into your LaTeX manuscript, either in the acknowledgements section or the Software section for journals like AAS.

The paper's improvements: Vera: Beyond just having a tool, the paper discusses several improvements they suggest for making this system more robust and flexible. They address the fact that there isn't one single universal standard for citing software.

Jocelyn: They talk about how they allow flexibility so you can write specific worded acknowledgements, and you can make arbitrary customisation when adding a new package to The Software Citation Station.

Subrahmanyan: A key improvement they focus on is handling dependencies. They state that if you select one package, the system automatically adds all of its dependencies and their dependencies that aren't already selected to your list of packages to cite.

Vera: So, if you pick one piece of code, the system figures out everything else it needs to be cited too, which is really smart for complex open-source projects.

Jocelyn: They also included a form for submitting new software packages themselves, which guides users through data entry like tags and description to make adding new tools easier.

Conclusion: Vera: To wrap up, The Software Citation Station aims to standardize the process of citing software by providing a quick way to find and add citations based on package information from sources like Zenodo.

Jocelyn: It solves the problem of authors having to guess what citation format is needed for every single piece of software they use, giving them a standardized output.

Subrahmanyan: For me, it means we can start tracking contributions more clearly in the literature, which helps us understand how much work goes into building these astronomical tools.

Vera: It also sets a good precedent for how we can encourage better practices among software developers in astronomy by providing a clear pathway for proper credit.

Jocelyn: This paper, "Streamlining and standardizing software citations with The Software Citation Station," provides a practical resource to help make sure the work done on processing astronomical data gets properly credited.