Accessibility of Internet References in Annals of Emergency Medicine: Is It Time to Require Archiving?

Thorp, Andrea W.; Brown, Lance

doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2006.11.019

Cited by 19 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Overall, 3 % of references used in these general medical journal articles cite Internet sources. This finding is consistent with other reports from the Emergency Medicine literature (Thorp and Brown 2007) high impact scientific publications (Dellavalle et al 2003), and two leading medical journals (Falagas et al 2008). More than a third of Internet references in our study were located in the Methods section of the article, where the information may be particularly critical to the study and therefore most important to be able to retrieve.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

“…For the 2005 original contributions there was an 8-year interval between the date of the initial publication and the time when the final To facilitate the prospective monitoring of the accessibility of these references and to avoid transcription errors, an Internet reference database was created. Each Internet reference was entered into a spreadsheet, the spelling of each uniform resource locator (URL) verified against the original published Internet reference, and each Internet reference accessed-as has been done in other studies (Thorp and Brown 2007;Crichlow et al 2004). In order to automate this process, the spreadsheet Internet reference list was linked to an Internet browser (Internet Explorer, version 7, Microsoft Corporation).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each Internet reference was classified as being accessible or not immediately accessible based on the Thorp approach (Thorp and Brown 2007). An accessible reference was defined as one that led directly to the information the author intended to cite or when this information was easily found using a site search.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among those that were not accessible there was an 88 % agreement on why they were not accessible. All the differences were resolved by consensus and related to deviations from the Thorp approach (Thorp and Brown 2007). One author (W. Wu) continued to check the Internet reference function annually, in the subsequent years, using this framework.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most authors citing Internet source material in academic publications assume that the material they cite can be retrieved. Over the past decades, Internet reference accessibility loss has been explored primarily in cross sectional studies (Hester et al 2004; Thorp and Brown 2007;Crichlow et al 2004;Habibzadeh 2013; Thorp and Schriger 2011;Wagner et al 2009;Wu 2009). These studies all raised concerns about the accessibility loss of Internet references.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Prospective evaluation of the accessibility of Internet references in leading general medical journals

Rochon

Gurwitz

et al. 2014

Scientometrics

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This study prospectively evaluates the accessibility of Internet references in leading general medical journals and explores the impact of their lost accessibility. We identified all original contributions published in five leading peer-reviewed traditional general medical journals and one leading on-line journal that were published at two time points (January 2005 and January 2008). We followed the sample prospectively for 5 years and determined the number of Internet references that remained accessible. Our sample of 165 original contributions contained 154 Internet references. Accessibility to Internet references declined from 51 % after 4 years to 37 % after 8 years in the articles published in January 2005, and decreased from 78 % after 1 year to 44 % after 5 years in the articles published in January 2008. Among those Internet references published in the most highlycited articles, only 19 % (95 % CI 10-35 %) remained accessible in March 2013. Among the Internet references cited in the Methods section of the articles, only 30 % (95 % CI 20-43 %) remained accessible. Of the 91 Internet references which were no longer accessible at the end of the follow-up period, 39 (43 %) were assigned a rating of either 'important' or 'very important'. Accessibility of Internet references declines substantially over time most often because the information is updated or the sites become unavailable. Accessibility remains poor even among those Internet references that are most important.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 94%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Prospective evaluation of the accessibility of Internet references in leading general medical journals

Rochon

Gurwitz

et al. 2014

Scientometrics

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Requirements and Definitions in Conflict of Interest Policies of Medical Journals

Blum

Freeman²,

Dart³

et al. 2009

JAMA

109

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Context Conflicts of interest (COIs) may influence medical literature. However, it is unclear whether medical journals have consistent policies for defining and soliciting COI disclosures. Objective To determine the prevalence of author COI policies, requirements for signed disclosure statements, and variability in COI definitions among medical journals. Design A cross-sectional survey of Instructions for Authors and manuscript submission documents, including authorship responsibility forms, for high-impact medical journals across 35 subject categories available from March through October 2008. Main Outcome Measure Presence of language referring to COI disclosure in the Instructions for Authors or manuscript submission documents. Results Of 256 journals, 89% had author COI policies. Fifty-four percent required authors to sign a disclosure statement, and 77% provided definitions of COI. Most definitions were limited to direct financial relationships; a minority of journals requested disclosure of other potential conflicts such as personal relationships (42%), paid expert testimony (42%), relationships with other organizations (26%), or travel grants (12%). The prevalence of policies varied by subject category: all internal medicine, respiratory medicine, and toxicology journals studied had comprehensive COI definitions, with 19 of these 24 journals requiring signed disclosure attestations. In contrast, 6 of 19 geriatrics, radiology, and rehabilitation journals requested author COI disclosure. Most journals that officially endorsed International Committee of Medical Journal Editors guidelines had COI policies (68/69), compared with 84% of journals not endorsing the guidelines (158/187). Conclusions In 2008, most medical journals with relatively high impact factors had author COI policies available for public review. Among journals, there was substantial variation in policies for solicitation of author COIs and in definitions of COI.

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Archiving website‐based references in academic papers: Problems caused by reference rot, potential solutions and limitations

Silva

Nazarovets

2023

Learned Publishing

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Key points Web‐based references form an integral part of academic culture and literature, as well as scientific communication. The preservation of web‐based references that are cited in‐text or in reference lists of academic papers is essential to ensure the integrity of knowledge preservation. When access or links to web‐based resources and references disappear, or if they are dysfunctional, these phenomena are collectively referred to as reference rot. Even though reference rot degrades the integrity of information in academic papers, no industry‐wide solutions currently exist. Given its prominence, we propose the Internet Archive as a possible solution to address reference rot, but also note its weaknesses and limitations.

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Accessibility of Internet References in Annals of Emergency Medicine: Is It Time to Require Archiving?

Abstract: In Annals of Emergency Medicine, older Internet references appear to be less accessible than newer references. Internet reference archiving is one solution to preserving this information for future readers.

Cited by 19 publications

References 6 publications

Prospective evaluation of the accessibility of Internet references in leading general medical journals

Prospective evaluation of the accessibility of Internet references in leading general medical journals

Requirements and Definitions in Conflict of Interest Policies of Medical Journals

Archiving website‐based references in academic papers: Problems caused by reference rot, potential solutions and limitations

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