Leveraging data citations to respond to libraries’ data evaluation needs - Make Data Count

"Libraries play an important role in driving adoption of open data, and they have an increasing focus on understanding dataset usage and impact. This information is key in order for institutions to gain information about the diverse research outputs contributed by their researchers, and to inform institutional strategy around research data management. Librarians also rely on insights on data usage to enhance their data advocacy efforts, showcase and support the expertise of the data workforce, and advance recognition and reward of data contributions.

In spite of the importance of these insights, reporting on the reach and impact of data often represents a challenge for academic libraries, due to the resources required to identify connections between datasets and other outputs, and the fact that this information is often obscured, incomplete, or siloed across different platforms and systems. One response to this need is to leverage data citations as indicators of dataset utilization: having access to data citations at scale would greatly facilitate libraries’ ability to report on data contributions from their institution."