Reference Rot: An Emerging Threat to Transparency in Political Science (doi:10.7910/DVN/Q8VDN0)

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Part 1: Document Description
Part 2: Study Description
Part 3: Data Files Description
Part 4: Variable Description
Part 5: Other Study-Related Materials
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Document Description

Citation

Title:

Reference Rot: An Emerging Threat to Transparency in Political Science

Identification Number:

doi:10.7910/DVN/Q8VDN0

Distributor:

Harvard Dataverse

Date of Distribution:

2017-01-12

Version:

1

Bibliographic Citation:

Bullock, John, 2017, "Reference Rot: An Emerging Threat to Transparency in Political Science", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/Q8VDN0, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:HufPtMFwXDY13FS7aDkTkQ== [fileUNF]

Study Description

Citation

Title:

Reference Rot: An Emerging Threat to Transparency in Political Science

Identification Number:

doi:10.7910/DVN/Q8VDN0

Authoring Entity:

Bullock, John (University of Texas at Austin)

Distributor:

Harvard Dataverse

Access Authority:

Bullock, John

Depositor:

Bullock, John

Date of Deposit:

2017-01-12

Holdings Information:

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/Q8VDN0

Study Scope

Keywords:

Social Sciences

Abstract:

Transparency of research is a large concern in political science, and the practice of publishing links to datasets and other online resources is one of the main methods by which political scientists promote transparency. But the method cannot work if the links don’t, and very often, they don’t. We show that most of the URLs ever published in the <em>American Political Science Review</em> no longer work as intended. The problem is severe in recent as well as in older articles; for example, more than one-fourth of links published in the APSR in 2013 were broken by the end of 2014. We conclude that “reference rot” limits the transparency and reproducibility of political science research. We also describe practices that scholars can adopt to combat the problem: when possible, they should archive data in trustworthy repositories, use links that incorporate persistent digital identifiers, and create archival versions of the webpages to which they link.

Methodology and Processing

Sources Statement

Data Access

Notes:

<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0">CC0 1.0</a>

Other Study Description Materials

Related Publications

Citation

Title:

Gertler, Aaron, and John G. Bullock. 2017. Reference Rot: An Emerging Threat to Transparency in Political Science. <em>PS: Political Science and Politics</em> 50 (January): 166-71.

Identification Number:

10.1017/S1049096516002353

Bibliographic Citation:

Gertler, Aaron, and John G. Bullock. 2017. Reference Rot: An Emerging Threat to Transparency in Political Science. <em>PS: Political Science and Politics</em> 50 (January): 166-71.

File Description--f2970191

File: brokenReproducibilityURLs.tab

  • Number of cases: 100

  • No. of variables per record: 5

  • Type of File: text/tab-separated-values

Notes:

UNF:6:HufPtMFwXDY13FS7aDkTkQ==

Variable Description

List of Variables:

Variables

year

f2970191 Location:

Summary Statistics: StDev 4.285941311928218; Valid 100.0; Mean 2006.88; Max. 2013.0; Min. 2000.0;

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:PgdrW2IsiEQKQuMYjMpjdg==

issue

f2970191 Location:

Summary Statistics: Valid 100.0; Mean 2.58; StDev 1.1117371973445862; Max. 4.0; Min. 1.0;

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:xL4cYR5qnmmtQ/mDMWfr0g==

page

f2970191 Location:

Summary Statistics: Max. 966.0; StDev 255.4780701810517; Mean 429.31; Min. 15.0; Valid 100.0

Variable Format: numeric

Notes: UNF:6:vIObhj0FLjy9XxJOO0Q0xg==

URL

f2970191 Location:

Variable Format: character

Notes: UNF:6:Q7SFFyNoCE7Da6gPQHSgwg==

result

f2970191 Location:

Variable Format: character

Notes: UNF:6:Abys+6TaSh/j+UxtpVEqVg==

Other Study-Related Materials

Label:

APSR_articlesPerIssue.csv

Notes:

text/csv

Other Study-Related Materials

Label:

coding instructions 2014.rtf

Notes:

application/msword

Other Study-Related Materials

Label:

coding instructions 2016.rtf

Notes:

application/msword

Other Study-Related Materials

Label:

createAllFigures.bat

Text:

Windows batch file that can be used to create all figures that appear in the article.

Notes:

text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Other Study-Related Materials

Label:

Figures_1_2_A3.R

Notes:

type/x-r-syntax

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Label:

Figure_3.R

Notes:

type/x-r-syntax

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Label:

Figure_A1.R

Notes:

type/x-r-syntax

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Label:

Figure_A2.R

Notes:

type/x-r-syntax

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Label:

README.txt

Notes:

text/plain

Other Study-Related Materials

Label:

URL_data.csv

Notes:

text/csv

Other Study-Related Materials

Label:

URL_dataCoding.R

Notes:

type/x-r-syntax