About I4OCCitations are the links that knit together our scientific and cultural knowledge. They are primary data that provide both provenance and an explanation for how we know facts. They allow us to attribute and credit scientific contributions, and they enable the evaluation of research and its impacts. In sum, citations are the most important vehicle for the discovery, dissemination, and evaluation of all scholarly knowledge. As the number of scholarly publications is estimated to double every nine years, citations -- and the computational systems that track them -- enable researchers and the public to keep abreast of significant developments in any given field. For this to be possible, it is essential to have unrestricted access to bibliographic and citation data in machine-readable form. The present scholarly communication system inadequately exposes the knowledge networks that already exist within our literature. Citation data are not usually freely available to access, they are often subject to inconsistent, hard-to-parse licenses, and they are usually not machine-readable.As of March 2017, the fraction of publications with open references has grown from 1% to more than 40% out of the nearly 35 million articles with references deposited with Crossref (to date). We encourage all other scholarly publishers to follow the example of these trail-blazing publishers by making their reference metadata publicly available. Please contact Crossref Support (support@crossref.org) for more information, or to let them know that you are ready to open up your reference metadata now.Initiative for Open CitationsI4OC_f88d2ea6-1e66-11e7-8592-eed26551e223Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) is a collaboration between scholarly publishers, researchers, and other interested partiesResearchersScholarly PublishersReference distribution -- Many publishers currently deposit reference lists from their journal articles to Crossref as part of their participation in Crossref's Cited-by service. To open their references, along with the other bibliographic metadata that publishers send to Crossref, publishers need to turn on reference distribution for all of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) prefixes they manage. This step allows references within the Crossref members’ articles to be distributed without restriction through all of Crossref's Metadata Delivery services, including the REST API and bulk metadata dumps, to any interested party.I4OC Participating PublishersBefore I4OC started, publishers releasing references in the open accounted for just 1% of citation metadata collected annually by Crossref. Following discussions over the past months, several subscription-access and open-access publishers have recently made the decision to release reference list metadata publicly. These include: American Geophysical Union, Association for Computing Machinery, BMJ, Cambridge University Press, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, EMBO Press, Royal Society of Chemistry, SAGE Publishing, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley. These publishers join other publishers who have been opening their references through Crossref for some time.American Geophysical UnionAssociation for Computing MachineryBMJCambridge University PressCold Spring Harbor Laboratory PressEMBO PressRoyal Society of ChemistrySAGE PublishingSpringer NatureTaylor & FrancisWileyI4OC DepositorsThe following list includes the names of all the publishers who have chosen to deposit and open up citation data as of March 30, 2017. I4OC will keep this list updated.American Geophysical UnionAssociation for Computing MachineryBMJCambridge University PressCo-Action PublishingCold Spring Harbor Laboratory PressCopernicus GmbHeLifeEMBO PressFaculty of 1000, Ltd.Frontiers Media SAGeological Society of LondonHamad bin Khalifa University Press (HBKU Press)HindawiInternational Union of CrystallographyLeibniz Institute for Psychology InformationMIT PressPeerJPensoft PublishersPortland PressPublic Library of ScienceRoyal Society of ChemistrySAGE PublishingSpringer NatureTaylor & Francis GroupThe Rockefeller University PressThe Royal SocietyUbiquity Press, Ltd.WileyI4OC SupportersBuilding on open citations -- Several organizations and projects have expressed support for the Initiative for Open Citations and interest in building on and promoting the availability of open citation data. I4OC will keep a list of these projects, and we encourage all other interested parties to make contact with us.Alfred P. Sloan Foundation AltmetricARLAuthoreaBill and Melinda Gates Foundation CDLCOSCollaborative Knowledge FoundationCOARContent MineData CarpentryDataverse ProjectdblpDRYADDepartment of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Bolognafigsharehypothes.isImpactstoryInternet ArchiveKnowledge Lab, University of ChicagoMax Planck Digital LibraryMozilla Open Knowledge InternationalOpenAIREOverleafjupyterROpenSciSimons Foundation Science Sandbox Wellcome TrustWiki EduWikimedia DeutschlandWikimedia UKzoteroI4OC FormersSix organizations collaborated to form I4OC:OpenCitationsWikimedia FoundationPublic Library of ScienceeLifeDataCiteCCATI4OC SpearheadersThe creation of I4OC was spearheaded by:Jonathan DuganMartin FennerJan GerlachCatriona MacCallumDaniel MietchenCameron NeylonMark PattersonMichelle PaulsonSilvio PeroniDavid ShottonDario Taraborelli_f88d3086-1e66-11e7-8592-eed26551e223To promote the unrestricted availability of scholarly citation data._f88d3860-1e66-11e7-8592-eed26551e223StructureStructured means the data representing each publication and each citation instance are expressed in common, machine-readable formats, and that these data can be accessed programmatically.Machine-ReadabilitySeparabilitySeparable means the citation instances can be accessed and analyzed without the need to access the source bibliographic products (such as journal articles and books) in which the citations are created.AccessAnalysisOpennessOpen means the data are freely accessible and reusable.AccessibilityReusabilityCitation DataPromote the availability of data on citations that are structured, separable, and open._f88d38b0-1e66-11e7-8592-eed26551e223An initiative to open up citation data -- The aim of this initiative is to promote the availability of data on citations that are structured, separable, and open.Citations WebEstablish a global public web of linked scholarly citation data to enhance the discoverability of published content, both subscription access and open access. _f88d38b1-1e66-11e7-8592-eed26551e2231This will particularly benefit individuals who are not members of academic institutions with subscriptions to commercial citation databases.ServicesBuild new services over the open citation data, for the benefit of publishers, researchers, funding agencies, academic institutions and the general public, as well as enhancing existing services._f88d38b2-1e66-11e7-8592-eed26551e2233PublishersResearchersFunding AgenciesAcademic InstitutionsThe General PublicGraphCreate a public citation graph to explore connections between knowledge fields, and to follow the evolution of ideas and scholarly disciplines._f88d38b3-1e66-11e7-8592-eed26551e22332017-04-10https://i4oc.org/OwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net