An introduction to the joint principles for data citation

EDITOR'S SUMMARY While the conventions of bibliographic citation have been long established, the sole focus is on reference to other scholarly works. Access to the data serving as the basis for scholarly work has been limited. Data citation extends important access to material that has been largely unavailable for sharing, verification and reuse. The Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, finalized in February 2014, is a formal statement pulling together practices used in the research and publishing arenas and in common use. The declaration encompasses eight principles that stress the importance and legitimacy of data, the need to give scholarly credit to contributors and the importance of data as evidence. Cited data should have unique and persistent identifiers, and the citation should facilitate human and machine access and support verification and interoperability. The principles are expected to have broad impact on research, recognition and scholarly publishing.