--- title: "Citing NEON data" description: "NEON data are CC-BY 4.0: how to cite a data product and release by DOI, why provisional data cannot be cited by DOI, and how to acknowledge NEON and NSF." type: Policy tags: - about - citation - DOI - data-policy - CC-BY generated: by: "claude/opus-5" at: "2026-09-10T12:00:00Z" sources: - id: neon-guidelines resource: "https://www.neonscience.org/data-samples/guidelines-policies" title: "NEON — Data and Samples: Guidelines and Policies" author: "team:neon" - id: neon-citation resource: "https://www.neonscience.org/data-samples/data-policies-citation" title: "NEON — Data Policies and Citation Guidelines" author: "team:neon" - id: neon-api-releases resource: "https://data.neonscience.org/data-api/endpoints/releases/" title: "NEON Data API — Releases endpoint" author: "team:neon" - id: neon-mcp-license resource: "https://github.com/idss-mesa/neon-mcp/blob/main/LICENSE" title: "neon-mcp LICENSE file (MIT)" author: "team:idss-mesa" status: stable stale_after: "2027-03-10T00:00:00Z" --- # Citing NEON data neon-mcp is only a conduit. The data it returns belong to the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), and NEON's data policy — not this project's license — governs how you may use and must credit them. This page summarises that policy and shows how to build a correct citation from what the API (and therefore neon-mcp) gives you. ## License: CC-BY 4.0 NEON releases its data and data products under the [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/){target=_blank} license[^neon-guidelines]. You may use, share and adapt them for any purpose, including commercially, provided you give appropriate credit. NEON asks that you cite each data product you use, at the release you used, and acknowledge NEON and the U.S. National Science Foundation in publications[^neon-citation]. Read the policy pages themselves before publishing; they are the authority and may change: * [Guidelines and policies](https://www.neonscience.org/data-samples/guidelines-policies){target=_blank} * [Data policies and citation guidelines](https://www.neonscience.org/data-samples/data-policies-citation){target=_blank} ## Releases and DOIs NEON publishes an annual **release** — a frozen, versioned snapshot of a data product's files (RELEASE-2021 through RELEASE-2026 exist as of September 2026). Every data product within a release has its own DOI, which is what you cite. Anything newer than the latest release is **provisional**: subject to reprocessing and without a DOI (see below). The Data API exposes the DOI wherever a product meets a release[^neon-api-releases]: * `GET /products/{productCode}` returns `releases[]`, each with `release` (the tag), `generationDate`, `url` and `productDoi.url`. * `GET /releases/{releaseTag}` returns `dataProducts[]`, each with `productCode`, `productName` and `productDoi`. For example, *Breeding landbird point counts* (`DP1.10003.001`) in `RELEASE-2026` carries `productDoi.url` = [https://doi.org/10.48443/v6hs-mx57](https://doi.org/10.48443/v6hs-mx57){target=_blank} (and `RELEASE-2025` carries `https://doi.org/10.48443/3nka-yg96`). neon-mcp's product and release tools surface these fields, so an agent can assemble a citation without a second lookup. ## How to cite a data product NEON's recommended pattern[^neon-citation] names the product, its code, the release, the DOI and the access date. neon-mcp's `neon_get_citation` tool renders exactly this wording (from the `neon://guide/citing-neon-data` resource), plus a BibTeX entry: > NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network). *Product name* > (DPx.xxxxx.xxx), RELEASE-YYYY. https://doi.org/10.48443/xxxx-xxxx. Dataset > accessed from https://data.neonscience.org on Month D, YYYY. Filled in for *Breeding landbird point counts* in `RELEASE-2026`: > NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network). Breeding landbird point counts > (DP1.10003.001), RELEASE-2026. https://doi.org/10.48443/v6hs-mx57. Dataset > accessed from https://data.neonscience.org on September 10, 2026. Cite every product you used, each at the release you actually downloaded. If you retrieved data through neon-mcp you may mention the tool in your methods, but the citation of record is always the NEON data product DOI. Never cite the signed download URLs: they expire after about seven days. ## Provisional data Availability listings from the API carry a `PROVISIONAL` pseudo-release tag alongside real release tags[^neon-api-releases]. Provisional data: * have **no DOI** and cannot be cited by one; * may be revised, reprocessed or removed before they enter a release; * are excluded from data queries by default and must be requested explicitly. When neon-mcp shows a site-month only under `PROVISIONAL`, that data are not yet in any release. For reproducible work prefer a release; if you must use provisional data, say so and cite them by access date: > NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network). *Product name* > (DPx.xxxxx.xxx), provisional data. Dataset accessed from > https://data.neonscience.org on Month D, YYYY. Data archived at [your DOI]. ## Acknowledging NEON and NSF NEON requests an acknowledgement in publications that use its data or samples[^neon-citation]; its suggested wording is: > The National Ecological Observatory Network is a program sponsored by the > U.S. National Science Foundation and operated under cooperative agreement > by Battelle. This material is based in part upon work supported by the > National Science Foundation through the NEON Program. NEON also asks to be told about publications that use its data so it can track the observatory's impact; the citation-guidelines page explains how. ## About neon-mcp itself The neon-mcp server software is MIT-licensed by The Regents of the University of New Mexico[^neon-mcp-license] and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NEON, Battelle or NSF. See [License](license.md) for the software and documentation licenses. [^neon-guidelines]: NEON — Data and Samples: Guidelines and Policies. [^neon-citation]: NEON — Data Policies and Citation Guidelines. [^neon-api-releases]: NEON Data API — Releases endpoint. [^neon-mcp-license]: neon-mcp `LICENSE` file.