ASCL entries include a field called “Ref,” for “refereed.” As the ASCL indexes codes used in research, this field contains at least one link to a research article which describes a code or in which the code was used.

Screen capture showing Site and Ref fields in an ASCL entry

The information in the Ref field is used by ADS to link papers and the codes they use, making it easy for someone reading an article to find the code(s) used in that research. You can find these associations in the “Associated Articles” section of an ADS entry.

In the first image below, which is a screen clip from an ADS entry, the Source Software link brings up the ASCL entry for a code used in the article; in the second image, the Paper 1 link brings up a paper that used the code:

Some papers have several links in the Ref field:

These are papers we found while researching a code or were entered by a code author when submitting code to the ASCL. Associating article entries with entries for the codes used in those articles makes finding the software used in the research easier. And though software is increasingly cited (in a variety of ways), it isn’t always, so using the Ref/Associated Articles links can help a code author demonstrate the impact of a particular software package.

I know the ASCL is missing many of these associations; ADS and the ASCL would like to improve this linkage. If you have ideas on how to do this, please post them here, or send them to editor@ascl.net. Thanks!