Problem: A study finds a concerning number of digital links in APSR articles are broken.
- Broken hyperlinks significantly hinder research reproducibility and access to data.
- Over 25% of links published in the American Political Science Review were non-functional by 2014.
Key Findings: Reference rot undermines established practices for enhancing scholarly transparency, impacting both new and older articles.
- The issue persists across all publication years analyzed.
- This limits verification and access to supporting materials cited online.
Implications & Solutions:
- Reproducibility suffers when data sources aren't accessible.
- Authors are urged to archive data in stable repositories, use persistent identifiers (like DOIs), or create web snapshots.
