Persistence of Web References in Scientific Research

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Persistence of Web References in Scientific Research

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• Arts

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• Publié par: olonilux
• Nombre de lectures: 40
• Langue: Français

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Persistence of in Scientific Re

The lack of persistence of Web references has called into question the increasingly common practice of citing URLs in scientific papers. Although few critical resources have been lost to date, new strategies to manage Internet resources and improved citation practices are necessary to minimize the future loss of information. esearchers have long desired immediateHowever, new Internet resource management strate- Steve access to all scientific knowledge. Al-gies and improved citation practices are necessary to Lawrence Flake dua Inter ei R mouminacettehrinettoc htecnofmrnadferelarveranere,befoecneotsgidiltalis’eticsitnecifarchResetituInsENC 4 b , r 5 ary though there are still major hurdles tominimize future information loss. David M. 1 overcome, theInternet has brought this Pennock goal closer to reality. Scientists use the SEARCHING FOR THE MISSING LINKS findings to a broaderWe investigated URLs cited in research papers using Gary William information on the Web are increasingly common.ResearchIndex, formerly known as CiteSeer.This Robert However, the lack of reliable or stable Internet pub-database, created in 1997, indexes Postscript and PDF Krovetz research articles on the Web. Aimed at improving com-lishing sources sometimes offsets the advantage of NEC Research being able to easily share various materials at mini-munication and progress in science, ResearchIndex Institute mal cost. Individuals and organizations abandon Webincorporates Autonomous Citation Indexing as well pages, shut down servers, and rename files.as the ability to quickly and easily see the context of Frans M. Invalid URLs do more than contribute to usersubsequent papers in which authors refer to a given Coetzee annoyance and frustration. Ultimately, they can lead toarticle of interest. A free service is available at http:// Certus the loss of important data as cited works and researchresearchindex.org/. International Inc. findings gradually disappear from circulation. Eric Glover Proposed formal approaches to bypass pages with Search methodology 2 University of From 3 to 5 May 2000, we analyzed 270,977 com-dead links during browsingor reduce their ranking 3 Michigan when presenting search engine resultsthreaten toputer science journal papers, conference papers, and exacerbate the problem. The lack of persistence of Webtechnical reports that were available at that time on Finn Årup 1 references has led many researchers to questionthe publicly indexable Web.From the 100,826 arti- Nielsen whether articles and other published works shouldcles cited by another article in the database (thus pro- Technical continue to include URL citations.viding us with the year of publication), we extracted University We analyzed references to Web resources in numer-67,577 URLs. We then attempted to access each one, of Denmark ous computer science publications, considering the vol-following redirected URLs to their new destination. Andries We searched for strings starting with “http:”, “https:”,ume of citations, validity of links, and detailed nature Kruger or “ftp:” and, after removal of trailing punctuation,of invalid links. We found that URL citations have University of ending with a quote or white space.increased dramatically in recent years and that many Stellenbosch of these references are now invalid. At the same time,As Figure 1a shows, the number of URL citations we determined that most missing URLs are easy tohas increased substantially since the inception of the C. Lee Giles relocate. Although formal references to published arti-Web. Figure 1b dramatically illustrates the lack of per- The Pennsylvania cles are always preferable, we believe that Web refer-sistence of Internet resources. The percentage of State University ences facilitate scientific communication and progress.invalid links in the articles we examined varied from 26 Computer 00189162/01/$10.00 © 2001 IEEE