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Wheels Are in Motion: OpenCitations’ progress in 2024

January is a strange month. After the festive whirl of December’s gatherings, it quickly shifts into the hustle and bustle of the new year’s commitments and the work that follows the holidays. For us at OpenCitations, however, it has become a tradition to take a moment at the end of this month to pause after the first hectic weeks of the year. This time allows us to reflect on the achievements of the past year and plan for the future with a clearer mind.  

2024 has been a transitional year, one where we’ve worked “in the shadows”, focusing on a series of behind-the-scenes improvements that will transform the OpenCitations experience for our users and services. Over the past few years, we have gathered valuable feedback from our community and have taken it to heart, using it to inform the enhancements to our infrastructure. These changes will be rolled out in the coming months of 2025, and we are excited to share a glimpse of what’s to come.

1. Strengthening the Foundations of the Technical Infrastructure

We closed out 2023 by announcing the redesign of our technical infrastructure, a crucial step for better managing OpenCitations’ data sources. This shift was necessary to enhance the efficiency of our processes and ensure scalability for the future. In particular, in recent months, our development team has been focused on addressing issues within OpenCitations Meta, to enable to set up again the usual bimonthly updates from one of our main data sources (i.e. Crossref). This work is essential to guarantee the timely release of the OpenCitations Index. 

We were happy to announce the July 2024 release of the Index, containing more than 2 billion citations, but we are now working to ensure that the release frequency is consistent throughout 2025. Our focus will be on maintaining a steady pace, ensuring regular updates, and improving the overall reliability of our data.

2.A Tool for Data Curation: HERITRACE

In addition to infrastructure improvements, we have been developing a new tool designed to streamline data curation: HERITRACE. This semantic data management system is tailored specifically for the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sector. HERITRACE serves as an editor for curating bibliographic data, allowing users to track provenance and monitor changes over time. 

It has been tested in a small-scale project with a specific dataset, and early results have been promising. HERITRACE is designed to be user-friendly, offering non-technical users a seamless experience while providing an efficient administrative interface for technical staff. In comparison to other established platforms such as OmekaS, Semantic MediaWiki, Research Space, and CLEF, it stands out for its ease of use, provenance management, change tracking, and customization options. 

HERITRACE is built upon SHACL for data modeling and integrates the OpenCitations Data Model (OCDM) for tracking provenance and changes. Looking ahead, we plan to expand its capabilities with the integration of a robust authentication system and broader data compatibility through the RDF Mapping Language (RML), making it an even more powerful tool for digital heritage management. 

In the context of OpenCitations, the goal is to use HERITRACE to enable curating bibliographic metadata and citation data by expert users (e.g. librarians), aiming at increasing the quality of the data OpenCitations provides. 

In the video below, our developer Arcangelo Massari provides a quick overview and tutorial of HERITRACE:

 

3.New and Ongoing Collaborations

During 2024, we have honoured the aspects of our mission statement describing community engagement as a core point in OpenCitations’ activities. These partnerships are vital to advancing OpenCitations’ purposes and goals, and we look forward to continuing the collective work into 2025. In particular, we expanded the network of partnerships and released some outcomes of previous collaborations:  

  • Our project within the European Research Council (2023-2024) dedicated to the mapping of metadata collections between OpenCitations Meta and OpenAlex, has concluded. The full analysis is presented in the following article involving OpenCitations Developer Elia Rizzetto:  

Rizzetto, E.; Peroni, S., Mapping bibliographic metadata collections: the case of OpenCitations Meta and OpenAlex, in: CEUR Workshop Proceedings, CEUR-WS, «CEUR WORKSHOP PROCEEDINGS», 2024, 3643, pp. 155 – 168 (Proceedings of the 20th Conference on Information and Research Science Connecting to Digital and Library Science, IRCDL 2024, Bressanone – Brixen, Italia, 2024)  

  • January 2025 has formally marked the beginning of two new exciting projects in collaboration with OPERAS and other institutional and industrial partners, building upon our previous work together within the GraspOS Project. During 2024, it’s been inspiring being involved in the work packages of the project, where we have kept collaborating with our colleagues from OpenAIRE. Also, GraspOS is doing a terrific job in the promotion of the news and initiatives of its community, through its newsletter, and its blog (where you can also find an exclusive interview with our Director and one with our Head of Comms – hi, it’s me!), so we suggest you subscribe and follow if interested in the theme of Open Science and Responsible Research Assessment.
  • In April, we were included in Infra Finder, a tool developed by Invest in Open Infrastructure to foster discovery, adoption, and investment in open infrastructure services. The intuitive interface and usability make Infra Finder a helpful tool that could make OpenCitations and other infrastructure services more visible to a wider and diverse community. 
  • We continued our participation in the SCOSS Family, the community of practice gathering the Infrastructures from SCOSS six pledging rounds, and we are now part of the internal working groups aimed at exploring ways of collaboration, sharing resources, creating impact and contributing to creating a stronger open ecosystem.  
  • Lastly, OpenCitations is proud to be one of the supporters of the Barcelona Declaration, a key initiative launched in April 2024 aimed at fostering open access to scholarly information and advancing the principles of open science. This aligns perfectly with OpenCitations’ mission to promote transparency, accessibility, and collaboration in scholarly communication. By supporting the Barcelona Declaration, we reaffirm our commitment to the shared values of openness, inclusivity, and the democratization of knowledge, all of which are integral to creating a more equitable and accessible academic landscape for researchers, institutions, and the global community.  

4.Welcome and Farewell

Alongside the growth of our network, the OpenCitations team has also expanded, now counting 11 collaborators, including Research Fellows and PhD students, with the addition of Ivan Heibi as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Mario Petrella as Systems Administrator. 

Besides the enrichment brought in by our new colleagues, 2024 also brought a great loss. The founder and director of OpenCitations, David Shotton, passed away in May, leaving not only an institutional but, most of all, a human void, as a mentor and guide. We wanted to remember him in this blog post, which aims to serve as a virtual wall of tribute, constantly evolving, where anyone wishing to share a thought for David can do so by sending an email to comms@opencitations.net.  

5.Renewal of the International Advisory Board for OpenCitations

After four years of prolific collaboration, the end of 2024 also marked the conclusion of our International Advisory Board’s first term. We’d like to extend our deepest gratitude to the former members for their invaluable insights and guidance throughout their tenure. Looking ahead, we are thrilled of the new members who have decided to put their expertise at OpenCitations’ service, and we can’t wait to begin working closely with them in 2025.

6.Some Spoilers for 2025

As we close out this year’s reflections, we’re also looking ahead to 2025. In this upcoming year, we will begin to see the fruits of our work from 2024. We are committed to continuously improving our offerings and services for our users and the community that supports us. We exist because of them, and we are here to serve their needs. 

In the coming weeks, you will also notice some exciting changes: OpenCitations will be undergoing a rebranding, along with updates designed to make our virtual presence more engaging and user-friendly. We’ve heard feedback about how challenging it can sometimes be to navigate our information, and we’re eager to make improvements that will help our users find what they need more easily. 

Finally, we invite all our readers to participate in the 5th Workshop on Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata (WOOC), which will be held in Bologna on May 28-29, 2025. WOOC aims to gather anyone interested in the widespread adoption of practices for creation, sharing, reuse and improvement of open scholarly metadata. This year’s edition of the workshop will be a special one, gravitating around the following theme: “Open Access of Research Information”. 

In particular, the first day will be dedicated to the Bologna Meeting on Open Research Information, to encourage discussion between the signatories and supporters of the Barcelona Declaration and other interested bodies and collaboratively orient the common roadmap, thus allowing the articulation of the outcomes that have recently been discussed during the Paris Conference on Open Research Information. 

The second day will be dedicated to invited contributions, presentations and a poster session selected among the participants for the call for contributions on the workshop theme. 

While the submission period for contributions is closing tomorrow, January 31 (h.23:59 AoE), there will still be opportunities to register as participants after the deadline, at the following link: https://forms.gle/Z7J36XSdPa9tkSop7. Please visit https://workshop-oc.github.io/ for all the information. We look forward to meeting you in Bologna! 

 

 

Apply now to the Workshop on Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata 2025: the call for participation and contributions is open! 

OpenCitations and the Barcelona Declaration are happy to announce that the call for participation and contributions to the Workshop on Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata 2025 is now open. 

After the success of the 2023 edition, this edition of the Workshop on Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata (WOOC) will take place in Bologna, on 28-29 May 2025. – https://workshop-oc.github.io 

SCOPE  

We invite to WOOC researchers, scholarly publishers, funders, policymakers, institutions, and open citations advocates, interested in the widespread adoption of practises for creation, sharing, reuse and improvement of open scholarly metadata. 

This year’s edition of the workshop will gravitate around the following theme: 

” Open Access of Research Information “ 

May 28 will be dedicated to the Bologna Meeting on Open Research Information, to encourage discussion between the signatories and supporters of the Barcelona Declaration and other interested bodies and collaboratively orient the common roadmap, thus allowing the articulation of the outcomes that have recently been discussed during the Paris Conference on Open Research Information. 

May 29 will be dedicated to invited contributions, presentations and a poster session selected among the participants in the call for contributions on the workshop theme. 

Participation in both days of WOOC 2025 is open to everyone. In particular, OpenCitations and the WOOC organizing committee aim to welcome the signatories and supporters of the Barcelona Declaration and anyone interested in Open Research Information to an interactive event that aspires to encourage the incubation of ideas and strategically orient the development of practices in open research information. 

The Workshop on Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata 2025 will be an in-presence event organized in the spaces of the University of Bologna, one of the signatories of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information and CoARA, of which it is also leader of the CoARA National Chapter. 

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION AND CONTRIBUTIONS 

Application form: https://forms.gle/Z7J36XSdPa9tkSop7  

Application deadline: 13 January 2025, 23:59 AOE 

EXTENDED DEADLINE: 31 January 2025, 23:59 AOE

If you wish to participate in the Workshop on Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata 2025 as an attendee, please fill in the form by providing the requested information and a short bio to apply for the event. 

You will receive a notification of acceptance by 20 February 2025. In case of oversubscriptions, the organisers will select attendees from among those who have applied. 

If you wish to submit a proposal to the Workshop of Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata 2025, please fill in both the first part and the second part of the application form to submit a contribution that fits this year’s theme “Open Access of Research Information“. The organizing committee will decide if the selected submissions will involve either a talk of 15-minute duration, with a 5-minute discussion following, or a poster presentation accompanied by a 2-3 minute pitch talk. The workshop day dedicated to the presentation of the selected contributions will be May 29.

Take into consideration the selection criteria, and submission/author guidelines listed under. 

 SELECTION CRITERIA 

    • Relevance to the workshop theme 
    • Methodological rigor and depth of elaboration 
    • Interest and potential for interdisciplinary engagement 
    • Impact and broader implications 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 

    • Contributions should be submitted in the form of a long abstract, ranging between 1250 and 1500 words. 
    • Accepted contributions will be limited to one presentation or poster per author. Similarly, we aim to avoid more than one presentation on a single initiative/project. 
    • Only submissions in English will be considered. 
    • Make sure that you have approval from your institution to participate in the conference at the latest when the results are announced. 
    • All submitted contributions will be peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers. 
    • Each accepted abstract will be published as conference paper with a dedicated DOI under the WOOC-2025 community on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/communities/wooc2025) 
    •  Selected contributions will be returned to the authors for the re-editing phase, formatted as a pre-compiled template in ODT format

AUTHOR GUIDELINES 

    • Word Count: Ensure your abstract stays within the specified limit of 1250–1500 words (including references). 
    • Structure: Start with the full title of your abstract, followed immediately by the names and affiliations of all authors. Organize the content into clear sections, for instance: “Purpose”, “Methods”, “Results”, and “Value” to provide a logical and coherent flow of information. 
    • Language: Write in English (either US or UK spelling is acceptable). Use clear, concise language to present your work, and ensure the text is free from grammatical errors and typos before submission. 
    • References: References can be included to provide context or support for the findings. All references must adhere to APA style.  

 FEES AND EXPENSES 

For the accepted attendees and contributors, we will request a small registration fee around €200 (exact amount to be announced). We will provide lunches and refreshments on all days, and a free workshop dinner on Wednesday 28 May.   

Those attending will be expected to cover the cost of their travel and accommodation, and a list of suggested hotels and guest houses is available here. 

Details of how to pay will be sent with the notification of acceptance and information to finalize the registration. 

IMPORTANT DATES 

Application deadline: 13 January 2025 EXTENDED DEADLINE 31 January 2025

Notification of acceptance (participation only): 20 February 2025 

Notification of acceptance (contributions): 10 March 2025 

Workshop dates: 28-29 May 2025 

All deadlines are h. 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth) 

VENUE 

Bologna is home to numerous prestigious cultural, economic and political institutions as well as one of the most impressive trade fair districts in Europe. In 2000 it was declared the European capital of culture, and in 2006, a UNESCO “city of music”. Bologna’s porticoes have been listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2021. 

The University of Bologna is the oldest university in the western world, and one of the largest universities in Italy (with about 90,000 enrolled students). 

 

For further information, please contact comms@opencitations.net  

 

Looking back to look ahead: OpenCitations’ achievements in 2023

The first month of the new year has almost come to an end, and we at OpenCitations have dedicated these weeks after the holiday season to retrace the progress we reached as an open infrastructure throughout 2023, an activity that has become a tradition in the past few years. Looking back to the achievements has proven to be a great practice for our team not only to honour and celebrate the success, but also to visualize the points to focus on to best serve our community when planning future activities. During 2023 we have reached numerous milestones, which can be summarized under the two main topics: technical developments and new connections. 

Technical Developments

1. New sources

At the end of 2022, we had enriched our collection with two more sources, PubMed and DataCite, which were added to Crossref. During 2023 we completed the integration between OpenCitations and the OpenAIRE Graph as concerns open bibliographic and citation data, and in December we included the DOI-to-DOI citation links derived from the Japan Link Center (JaLC). As a result, by the end of 2023, OpenCitations counted almost 2 BILLION open citations available in its collection.

2. A brand-new workflow for an easier consultation

The progressive integration of new sources is one of OpenCitations’ main objectives. However, the recent source increase made it necessary to design a new ingestion workflow to facilitate their management. In November 2023 OpenCitations launched the new workflow, designed to produce just two comprehensive collections: OpenCitations Index, collecting open citation data, and OpenCitations Meta, containing open bibliographic metadata of citing and cited entities involved in citations. This evolution is making it simpler for OpenCitations users to consult the data maintained by our infrastructure without reducing the information content and accuracy.  

New connections 

3. A great event for the community

In October 2023, OpenCitations hosted the Workshop on Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata 2023 (WOOC 2023) in the historical location of the University of Bologna. After two online editions, it was exciting to meet in person the researchers, policy makers and service providers who in the past few years have collaborated with OpenCitations in many ways. For two days, almost 80 people from all around the world gathered to discuss the theme “The value of open scholarly metadata for Research Assessment purposes”. The event gave us a picture of a young and enthusiastic research community, aiming to collaborate among different countries to spread the message “Open Science is Better Science”. If you couldn’t attend the workshop, but are interested in the theme, you can find all the presentations from WOOC 2023 on Zenodo. Stay tuned on the WOOC X account and website, we will announce the 2025 edition later in 2024! 

4. New and old partnerships

OpenCitations’ main activities, besides the technical development, are tied to its participation in R&D and funded projects. Since 2019, we have started building a network of collaborations all around the world with institutions which share the same Open Science values. In 2023, our involvement in the SCOSS 2nd funding cycle has come to an end. In the last four years SCOSS has worked as an international showcase for OpenCitations, making it possible for us to get known by many institutions on an international level. We are now proud to keep on collaborating with SCOSS within the SCOSS Family network, a community of practice gathering all the OS infrastructure involved in the SCOSS funding cycles. During 2023, the SCOSS Family was involved in four internal sprints dedicated to planning four actions – collectively advocating the importance of open  infrastructure, communications kit for ‘the post-SCOSS phase’, collective self-assessment towards POSI, and map open science infrastructure ecosystem including SCOSS infrastructures – and the initial outcomes were presented in the Scoss Family Public Webinar 2023. The SCOSS family will continue its activities throughout 2024.

In 2023, we also celebrated the update of the Principles of Open Sc