Research IT

Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) survey on citing software

Even though 92% of academics say they use research software and 69% say that their research would not be practical without it[1], it is often the case that software is cited in academic literature in a haphazard fashion – if it is even cited at all.

At the recent Software Sustainability Institute Collaborations Workshop in Edinburgh, a lightning talk by Caroline Jay started off discussions about citing software when she mentioned that questions had been asked about self-citations in a paper she had recently submitted. The software that was written, and cited in the paper, looked at first glance like a large stack of self-citations.

Institute fellow Robin Wilson asked if anyone else had experienced anything similar and put together a quick survey to gather some quick responses on the subject.

SSI want to hear about your experiences about citing software in your research! Please fill in the short (2 minute) survey here.