Closing the loop: Linking Datasets to Publications and Back

Abstract

With the mainstream adoption of references to datasets in astronomical manuscripts, researchers today are able to provide direct links from their papers to the original data that were used in their study. Following a process similar to the verification of references in manuscripts, publishers have been working with the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) to validate and maintain links to these datasets. Similarly, many astronomical data centers have been tracking publications based on the observations that they archive, and have been working with the ADS to maintain links between their datasets and the bibliographic records in question. In addition to providing a valuable service to ADS users, maintaining these correlations allows the data centers to evaluate the scientific impact of their missions. Until recently, these two activities have evolved in parallel on independent tracks, with ADS playing a central role in bridging the connection between publishers and data centers. However, the ADS is now implementing the capability for all parties involved to find out which data links have been published with which manuscripts, and vice versa. This will allow data centers to periodically harvest the ADS to find out if there are new papers which reference datasets available in their archives. In this paper we summarize the state of the dataset linking project and describe the new harvesting interface.