Provide how to cite FLORIS

[paulf81]

Provide how to cite FLORIS

I think we should include in README and/or DOCS a preferred method for citing FLORIS. We could add perhaps a CFF file?

Proposed solution

https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/about-citation-files

Maybe also need to use this issue to discuss preferred option? @rafmudaf @misi9170

Additional context

Issue in response to #1046

[misi9170]

I do think adding a CFF file is a good idea, it seems like the right solution. It does, however, add another place where we'll need to increment the version number. I wonder if it's possible to get the version number from the pyproject.toml (would also be great if that could be done in the README...)

[rafmudaf]

Either way sounds good to me. At a minimum, we should include the bibtex in the README and docs landing page so that people can simply copy / paste. This is common in research software, so I think it's easily guessable. I've personally never seen or used the GitHub "Cite this repository" dropdown.

On another note, how should FLORIS be cited? The decision to cite it with NREL as the author was made many years ago based on some RSE community efforts around software citation. The idea was to generate a citation count for a project (i.e. FLORIS) rather than a person, and then all the people responsible for it could use it as a metric in their reviews / resume. In other words, it was meant to be more inclusive. In retrospect, I don't think this has worked.

I think finally creating a citation that lists individual names would be more beneficial to the actual authors. We could either have one citation for all versions and include all or most of the contributors to the repository, or we could create a new author list and citation with individual versions. Another typical route is to finally publish a paper in JOSS and use that for citation.

[paulf81]

I'm happy with the proposals of the last paragraph of your @rafmudaf . Maybe for the near term we go ahead with

one citation for all versions and include all or most of the contributors to the repository,

and then on some longer time horizon:

publish a paper in JOSS and use that for citation.

[rafmudaf]

FWIW I think the JOSS route is best. Since FLORIS is a mature software, it should move through fairly quickly.
cc @christiannvaughn