CodeMeta Use Cases

Highlighting how CodeMeta facilitates the integration of software into the research ecosystem, driving interoperability, transparency, discoverability, and promoting open science initiatives, especially through Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) and community-driven efforts.

As research becomes increasingly digital and interconnected, the role of digital products—such as software, data, multimedia content, and interactive tools—becomes indispensable for advancing knowledge creation. However, these components often lack the proper recognition and citation within the scholarly ecosystem. Software, which plays a pivotal role of in scientific advancement, but is often overlooked in citation practices. CodeMeta aims to solve this issue by standardizing and streamlining software citation, ensuring accurate attribution, improving reproducibility, and promoting FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles across research disciplines.

CodeMeta supports a machine-readable metadata format that enables the indexing, discovery, and citation of software across repositories. This benefits researchers, publishers, and funders alike. Key community-driven initiatives such as Force11, CHAOSS, the UK Software Sustainability Institute (SSI), and WSSSPE workshops have been instrumental in raising awareness and advocating for best practices in software citation. CHAOSS (Community Health Analytics Open Source Software), for example, promotes metrics for open-source sustainability, which complements CodeMeta’s mission of fostering transparency and sustainability in software projects. Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) in universities and research institutions have adopted CodeMeta to ensure proper recognition of open-source contributions. Funding agencies like NSF and NIH also sponsor these efforts, enhancing the reproducibility and transparency of research, where software and other digital tools play a central role.

Key Use Cases for CodeMeta

  1. Enabling Reliable Software Citation CodeMeta enables the accurate citation, indexing, and proper crediting of software by providing structured metadata. This is essential in services like FAIRCORE4EOSC, which integrate CodeMeta into citation workflows. OSPOs are also integrating CodeMeta to ensure open-source software is cited correctly in academic publications.

  2. Standardizing Software Metadata CodeMeta defines a common, machine-readable vocabulary (JSON-LD) that ensures software metadata can be consistently shared across repositories, platforms, and domains. This standardization supports infrastructures like EOSC and initiatives promoted by CHAOSS in managing metadata at scale.

  3. Improving Discovery and Reuse CodeMeta enhances the discoverability and reuse of software by applying consistent metadata schemas. With its integration into APIs and connectors, CodeMeta promotes the sharing and reuse of software across multiple platforms and repositories, reducing redundancy in research workflows.

  4. Supporting Interoperability Between Systems CodeMeta serves as a metadata exchange layer, facilitating the seamless flow of metadata between different systems and repositories. This interoperability is crucial for OSPOs, helping universities and research institutions share open-source projects across platforms without the need for bespoke converters.

  5. Enhancing Transparency and Reproducibility By providing standardized metadata, CodeMeta ensures software functionality, dependencies, and development processes are transparent, which is crucial for reproducible science. This transparency makes it easier for researchers to replicate and verify scientific results, supporting efforts in reproducibility as advocated by initiatives like OSPO and CHAOSS.

  6. Citing Software Papers Software papers, which describe the performance and validation of software, should be cited along with the software itself. Journals like F1000Research, SoftwareX, and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) now support submissions focused on software, emphasizing its importance in academic citation practices.

  7. Citing Derived Software Software often builds on previous versions or other tools. Just like research, derived software should be cited based on its dependencies. This ensures proper credit is given to both the original and modified software contributors, a practice promoted in the OSPO and CHAOSS communities.

  8. Software Peer Review Improving software reproducibility and citation enhances the software peer-review process. CodeMeta can include metadata like the peer-review status of software, supporting rigorous, transparent reviews of software in academic research.

  9. Citation Format in Reference Lists Software citations should be clearly labeled (e.g., [Software], [Software: Source Code], or [Software: Container]) and include version information (e.g., Version 1.8.7). This enables clear differentiation from other research products in citation lists and encourages more consistent citation practices, especially in OSPO-backed projects.

  10. Handling Citation Limits Some academic journals impose citation or page limits, which can discourage authors from citing software. CodeMeta supports efforts to revise publisher guidelines, ensuring software receives due credit without restrictions on citation or page limits.

  11. Unique Identification via DOIs CodeMeta advocates for the use of DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) as persistent, globally unique identifiers for software versions. This ensures that software can be accessed, reused, and reliably cited across different repositories, supporting the sustainability of open-source software and its integration into OSPOs and academic research.

  12. Domain-Specific Community Activities Professional societies like the Astronomy Source Code Library (ASCL) and initiatives like Ontosoft for geosciences have played key roles in promoting software citation within their domains. CodeMeta helps facilitate interoperability between these domain-specific standards, ensuring consistent software metadata and enhancing discoverability.

  13. Existing Efforts Around Metadata Standards Several communities, including DOAP and Ontosoft, have developed metadata standards for software citation. CodeMeta enables interoperability between these standards, providing a unified approach for sharing software metadata across repositories, ensuring consistency and accessibility.

Additional Use Cases from Open Source and OSPO Initiatives

  1. Supporting Software Sustainability and Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) OSPOs such as those at Johns Hopkins University and Université Grenoble Alpes are crucial for promoting sustainable open-source practices and managing software developed within academic settings. By integrating CodeMeta, these offices ensure that software is properly recognized, cited, and reused, ensuring long-term sustainability and fostering collaboration within the CHAOSS community.

  2. Software Contribution Tracking and Visibility CodeMeta can be used to track contributions to open-source projects, providing visibility into the impact of software development efforts. OSPOs and initiatives like SustainOSS rely on tools like CodeMeta to make open-source contributions visible and to ensure credit is properly attributed, a central concern for the CHAOSS community.

  3. Open Source Project Catalogs and Research Software Directories Platforms such as the Research Software Directory (Netherlands eScience Center) and the Open Source Project Catalog (Johns Hopkins University) help organize and catalog open-source research software. CodeMeta provides the standardized metadata needed for these directories, ensuring that software is discoverable, properly described, and connected to the broader research ecosystem.

  4. Software Funding and OSPO Collaboration CodeMeta links research software to funding sources, helping OSPOs and academic institutions track the impact and sustainability of funded software. This is particularly important for funding bodies like NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) and NSF, who need to ensure that research software is properly managed, documented, and disseminated.

  5. Managing and Archiving Research Software CodeMeta facilitates the archiving of research software by embedding metadata within repositories, ensuring the long-term availability and reproducibility of software. This is essential for projects like Software Heritage, which aims to preserve open-source software for future generations of researchers.

  6. Enhanced Collaboration Across Institutions CodeMeta enables better collaboration between institutions by making it easier to share software projects and metadata across multiple research groups and platforms. This aligns with the goals of OSPOs, who need to ensure that software developed within universities and research institutions is easily accessible, properly cited, and reused across the global research community.

By integrating CodeMeta into the academic research ecosystem, software becomes an integral and properly recognized part of the scholarly record. These use cases align with broader open science initiatives, supporting reproducibility, software sustainability, and the continued growth of OSPOs, CHAOSS, and other community-driven efforts.