# Best practice example for software references (metadata)

**URL:** <https://community.crossref.org/t/best-practice-example-for-software-references-metadata/3402>\
**Category:** Interfaces for Machines\
**Created:** [19 March 2023 15:53 UTC](https://community.crossref.org/t/best-practice-example-for-software-references-metadata/3402 "2023-03-19T15:53:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![peter.loewe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/eada6e/32.png) [@peter.loewe](https://community.crossref.org/u/peter.loewe)\
**Post date:** [19 March 2023 15:53 UTC](https://community.crossref.org/t/best-practice-example-for-software-references-metadata/3402/1 "2023-03-19T15:53:40Z")

</div>

Dear Crossref community,

I am asking for advice or possibly an example about software citation as relations.

I am the editor for this chapter of the Springer Handbook of Geographic Information:  
10.1007/978-3-030-53125-6\_30

The reference section of the chapter contains a significant number of DOI-based references to software projects and other digital resources. The metadata section of the publication landing page currently provides metadata information for the DOI-based software project references this way:

{  
“key”:“30\_CR60”,  
“doi-asserted-by”:“publisher”,  
“unstructured”:"QGIS Contributors: QGIS. Zenodo. (2022).  
[_URL-here_],  
“DOI”:“10.5281/ZENODO.5869837”  
}

This information does is not being picked up by the “cited-by” services (yet). I assume that this is caused by the absence of a \<doi\_relations\> section for the software/data/video DOI.

Both the publisher and the Handbook editors are in support that this should be improved.

Can you please point me to further information how to enable “cited-by” due credit for the DOI-based software references by proper metadata ?

Thanks,  
Peter

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Shayn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/community.crossref.org/shayn/32/57_2.png) [@Shayn](https://community.crossref.org/u/Shayn)\
**Post date:** [20 March 2023 20:02 UTC](https://community.crossref.org/t/best-practice-example-for-software-references-metadata/3402/3 "2023-03-20T20:02:10Z")

</div>

Hi Peter,

There are two different ways to indicate [software or data citations](https://www.crossref.org/community/data-citation/) in Crossref metadata: as references or as relationships.

The particular example you’re showing uses the references method. When software is cited using a reference, it may result in a citation via our Cited-by service.

In that example, the reference has been supplied correctly. However, the cited item’s DOI is registered through DataCite, not Crossref. And DataCite DOIs aren’t part of Crossref’s Cited-by service. We only match and assert citations to (and, more generally, maintain metadata records for) Crossref DOIs.

That said, our [Event Data](https://www.crossref.org/services/event-data/) service does include citations between Crossref and DataCite DOIs as "events.

So, if you query all the events pertaining to 10.5281/ZENODO.5869837 like this:  
[https://api.eventdata.crossref.org/v1/events?mailto={your-email-address-goes-here}&rows=100&obj-id=10.5281/ZENODO.5869837](https://api.eventdata.crossref.org/v1/events?mailto=%7Byour-email-address-goes-here%7D&rows=100&obj-id=10.5281/ZENODO.5869837)

you’ll see that citation by 10.1007/978-3-030-53125-6\_30 returned in the results as follows:

```auto
{
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
"obj_id": "https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.5869837",
"source_token": "36c35e23-8757-4a9d-aacf-345e9b7eb50d",
"occurred_at": "2022-06-24T22:42:33.000Z",
"subj_id": "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53125-6_30",
"id": "9b60e591-58e4-445d-a8d2-ecc1466e88b5",
"evidence_record": "https://evidence.eventdata.crossref.org/evidence/20220624-metadata-a73d495b-461c-4a58-a8ec-ac9bb6bb8b7e",
"terms": "https://doi.org/10.13003/CED-terms-of-use",
"action": "add",
"subj": {
"pid": "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53125-6_30",
"url": "https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53125-6_30",
"work_type_id": "book-chapter"
},
"source_id": "crossref",
"obj": {
"pid": "https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.5869837",
"url": "https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.5869837",
"method": "doi-literal",
"verification": "literal",
"work_type_id": "Software"
},
"timestamp": "2022-06-25T02:06:28Z",
"relation_type_id": "references"

```

So, as far as references between publications registered in Crossref and data/software registered in DataCite, that’s the expected behavior resulting from the reference you supplied in the metadata for 10.1007/978-3-030-53125-6\_30

You may also want to reflect the connection between 10.1007/978-3-030-53125-6\_30 and 10.5281/ZENODO.5869837 as a [relationship](https://www.crossref.org/documentation/schema-library/markup-guide-metadata-segments/relationships/) as well. That’s helpful, but it will not show in the Cited-by service.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best,  
Shayn