Sound, reproducible scholarship rests upon a foundation of robust, accessible data. For this to be so in practice as well as theory, data must be accorded due importance in the practice of scholarship and in the enduring scholarly record. In other words, data should be considered legitimate, citable products of research. Data citation, like the citation of other evidence and sources, is good research practice and is part of the scholarly ecosystem supporting data reuse.

In support of this assertion, and to encourage good practice, Force11 — a community of scholars, librarians, archivists, publishers and research funders that aims to facilitate the change toward improved knowledge creation and sharing — released a set of guiding principles for data within scholarly literature, another dataset, or any other research object.

These principles are the synthesis of work by a number of groups. As it moves into the next phase, Force 11 welcomes your participation and endorsement of these principles.