| dc.creator |
Sife, Alfred |
|
| dc.creator |
Lwoga, Edda Tandi |
|
| dc.date |
2020-08-10T10:25:53Z |
|
| dc.date |
2020-08-10T10:25:53Z |
|
| dc.date |
2017-08 |
|
| dc.date.accessioned |
2022-10-20T08:35:14Z |
|
| dc.date.available |
2022-10-20T08:35:14Z |
|
| dc.identifier |
Sife, AS & Lwoga, ET. 2017. Retrieving vanished web references in health science journals in East Africa, Information and Learning Science, https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-04-2017-0030 |
|
| dc.identifier |
http://dspace.cbe.ac.tz:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/482 |
|
| dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/79518 |
|
| dc.description |
Objective: This study examined the availability and persistence of Universal Resource
Locators (URLs) cited in scholarly articles published in selected health journals based in East Africa.
Methods: Four health sciences online journals in East Africa were selected for this study. We extracted all web citations in the selected journal articles covering the 2001 – 2015 period.
The study explored the proportion of URLs used as citations, determined the rate of URLs
loss, identified error messages associated with inaccessible URLs, identified the top domain levels of decayed URLs, calculated the half-life of the web citations, and determined the proportion of recovered URL citations through the Internet Wayback Machine.
Results: A total of 822 articles were published between 2001 and 2015. There was a total of 17,609 citations of which, only 574 (3.3%) were web citations. The findings show that 253 (44.1%) web citations were inaccessible and the 404 File Not Found error message was the most (88.9%) encountered. Top-level domains with country endings had the most (23.7%) missing URLs. The average half-life for the URLs cited in journal articles was 10.5 years. Only 36 (6.3%) web references were recovered through Wayback Machine.
Originality: This is a comprehensive study of East African health sciences online journals
that provides findings that raises questions as to whether URLs should continue to be
included as part of bibliographic details in the lists of references. It also calls for concerted
efforts from various actors in overcoming the problem of URL decay. |
|
| dc.format |
application/pdf |
|
| dc.language |
en |
|
| dc.subject |
Citation; Vanished URLs; Wayback Machine; journals; web references; East Africa |
|
| dc.title |
Retrieving Vanished Web References in Health Science Journals in East Africa |
|
| dc.type |
Article |
|