Leveraging DataCite DOIs for Software Citation and Reuse

At the International Research Software Conference (IRSC26), taking place from 7-8 September 2026 in Sheffield, United Kingdom, DataCite Community Specialist Maria Levchenko will give a presentation exploring how Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) in DataCite infrastructure can support software citation, foster reuse, and improve attribution Well-documented and accessible software is essential for reproducibility, however accurately identifying the specific version of source code associated with a given work remains a challenge. Persistent identifiers for software can help track software use and assign credit to those who develop and maintain it. DataCite provides open infrastructure for research organizations to create and manage DOIs and rich metadata for research outputs, resources, and activities. In this presentation, Maria examines community usage and practices across over 1,000,000 software DOIs registered by DataCite members. Maria demonstrates how DataCite Metadata Schema can be used to connect software and related outputs, including data, publications, models, and computational notebooks, and link software to contributors and affiliated institutions.