Reference Rot: An Emerging Threat to Transparency in Political Science
@article{Gertler2017ReferenceRA, title={Reference Rot: An Emerging Threat to Transparency in Political Science}, author={Aaron L. Gertler and John G. Bullock}, journal={PS: Political Science \& Politics}, year={2017}, volume={50}, pages={166 - 171} }
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 American Political Science Review no longer work as intended. The problem is severe in recent as well as in older articles; for example, more…
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