Include citations.txt and rights.txt files in CSV downloads

18535
Reporter: kbraak
Type: Improvement
Summary: Include citations.txt and rights.txt files in CSV downloads
Priority: Unassessed
Status: Open
Created: 2016-06-16 11:12:25.718
Updated: 2016-06-27 11:50:32.2
        
Description: Currently the citations.txt and rights.txt files are not contained in the CSV download. Supposedly the reason is that CSV downloads are intended to support automated machine digestion.

I propose we include them in the compressed .zip CSV downloads because:

1. users of CSV downloads have no convenient way to respect the usage rights of its constituent data sources without the rights.txt file.
2. users of CSV downloads have no convenient way of properly attributing constituent data sources without the citations.txt file.

Unfortunately, the only way users can get both these files right now is to perform another duplicate download in DwC-A format for the same query.

GBIF needs to store this duplicate DwC-A download for many years and assigns it a DOI - even though its only purpose was to generate citations.txt and rights.txt files for the user. Not only is this is a waste of resources, it puts unnecessary load on our cluster and most importantly  it makes using GBIF data a confusing and frustrating experience.

Furthermore there can be differences between the CSV and DwC-A downloads because the underlying records are constantly being updated or deleted due to crawling and deletions run by the GBIF data manager.

Next, I would also like to propose the following changes to make it easier for users to understand how to properly use GBIF data:

1. at the time of download, explain that a citations.txt and rights.txt files are included in the download and what their purpose is.
2. in the download email, elaborate more on how to properly use GBIF data and provide alternate citations in the formats most commonly used by journals.
3. update the [GBIF Data Use FAQ page|http://www.gbif.org/faq/data-use] to explain how to properly use the citations.txt and rights.txt files. ]]>