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

Abstract

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.

Are current archiving systems reliable enough?

“…In fact, what has been mentioned in the article is consistent with the findings of many other studies [2][3][4]. A study conducted in 2013 showed that about half of the articles published in the British Medical Journal and The Lancet cited at least one URL and that these URLs had a half-life of 4.7 years [2].…”

Knowledge of use and type of references in Library and Information Science and Legal Medicine as support for specialized librarians

“…Wren et al (2006) state that the instability of links, and, with that, of the information they contain, will continue to occur progressively until there are improved policies for the preservation and conservation of these links. Rochon et al (2015) noted that, although the Internet presents many possibilities in terms of ease of access and being gratis, it also has drawbacks. Some of these drawbacks are not being able to access the right information due to the inability to locate the resource in cyberspace because it had been moved or had been deleted from the Web, or because it was on the Invisible Web.…”

“…Some authors have tried to find solutions to these problems. Examples are: Spinellis (2003), Hester et al (2004), Tajeddini et al (2011), and Moghaddam et al (2012) who opt for cooperation among all the participants in the process by creating an online archive with all the Internet material, to which all references are directed; Wren et al (2006), Moghaddam et al (2012), and Rochon et al (2015) who consider that the links to digital objects should be reviewed before the document is published so as to prevent the premature decay of the said URLs; and finally, Spinellis (2003) and Tajeddini et al (2011) who indicate that the creators of the information on websites should themselves keep copies of the material they have created so that, if needed, they could cooperate with those responsible for maintaining that website. For Wren (2008), this situation is unlikely because the authors of the information available on the Internet do not have enough time and expertise to perform this task.…”

“…A year later, Prithvi Raj and Sampath Kumar (2013) presented another article analysing the trend in Web references in the communications in conference proceedings on LIS in India between 2001 and 2010, finding that the works with at least one URL increased from 39.10% in 2001 to 91.67% in 2010. Finally, Rochon et al (2015) indicate that 70% of the articles in medical electronic academic journals contain at least one Web reference, and that therefore one can say that such Web references are widely used among medical researchers.…”