Citations of software DOI: How to access with new API

Technical Support
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Dear CrossRef-Community,

apologies if this a RTFM case !

The eventdata API allowed to query for references to DOI for software, e.g.

apiDOTeventdataDOTcrossrefDOTorg/v1/events?mailto=baz@foo.bar&rows=200&obj-id=10.5281/zenodo.19735438

this concrete case (10.5281/zenodo.19735438), the above query yielded a significant return of results.

The new API, apiDOTcrossrefDOTorg/beta/datacitations/?object-id=10.5281/zenodo.19735438 returns zero results {“status”:“ok”,“message”:{“total-results”:0,“next-page”:null,“items-per-page”:20,“items”:[]},“message-type”:“data-citations-list”}

Can you please advise how to query for software DOI with the new API ?

Best,

Peter

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Hi @peter.loewe . I’ve upgraded the status/permissions on your account so you can post links and images.

DOI 10.5281/zenodo.19735438 is not a Crossref DOI. The DOI, as others on 10.5281, is registered with our sibling metadata registration agency, DataCite, as you can see here: DOI Name 10.5281 Values.

I think that is the issue. Let me see if my colleague @mrittman has any proposed solutions.

-Isaac

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Hi Peter,

Thanks for the comment, if you want to RTFM, have a look at Data citations - Crossref but I can add some more context and suggestions.

Event Data did include software citations, but we also know that it was incomplete and it was missing quite a few genuine relationships. With the new endpoint we’ve stripped it back to make sure we can nail one use case well, and at the moment that’s data citations. We’ve been getting feedback from a number of sources, and expanding to software and other sources has come up several times - that isn’t a surprise to us and is very likely to be added to the new API in the future.

In the meantime, the best source for relationships for Zenodo DOIs would be DataCite - see, for example, their implementation of Event Data DataCite Event Data.

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Hello Martyn, all,

thanks for responding so quickly (and the RTFM!). I understand that the new endpoint is for now limited to data citation. However, the software citation service provided via Event Data was extremely useful for Open Source communities (my realm) to understand the usefulness and impact of implementing code DOI.

The largest Open Source GIS project (QGIS) just upated their code citation recommendations for concept- and version-DOI (FAQ · QGIS → “how to cite QGIS”).

The overall value of CrossRef-derived code-references was just showcased two weeks ago at a Geoscience Conference in Germany. If you are interested, the slideset is available here: Recipes for a Small Planet: Geospatial Open Source für offene und FAIRe Wissenschaft – und Gesellschaft Slides 16-19 and 23-25 vive you the latest numbers based on Event Data.

The topic was also discussed at last years EGU conference with colleagues from ESIP, who appreciated code-DOI-based evidence that authors are staring to embrace code citation with DOI in their submissions,

Can you guestimate by when a new implementation of of a CrossRef-service for code citation will be released or become available for betatesting ?

Best regards,

Peter

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Hello Peter,

Thanks for the links and additional context, it’s useful to know how the community is using this metadata. We’ve committed to running the data citations endpoint as a beta for 6 months and will re-evaluate at that point. It’s unlikely that we will have the capacity to work on it before then.

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Hello Martyn,

thanks for the info about the timeline for the release of the data citations endpoint.

Is it possible to volunteer as a beta-tester ?

In the meantime, all previous results for DOI-based citations of open source geospatial software until 2026-04-22 are preserved here: https://www.fair4g.org/

Best,
Peter

peter.loewe@gmx.de

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Hello Peter. Thanks for the offer, I’ll be in touch!