On the persistence of supplementary resources in biomedical publications.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Providing for long-term and consistent public access to scientific data is a growing concern in biomedical research. One aspect of this problem can be demonstrated by evaluating the persistence of supplementary data associated with published biomedical papers.

Methods

We manually evaluated 655 supplementary data links extracted from PubMed abstracts published 1998-2005 (Method 1) as well as a further focused subset of 162 full-text manuscripts published within three representative high-impact biomedical journals between September and December 2004 (Method 2).

Results

For Method 1 we found that since 2001, only 71 - 92% of supplementary data were still accessible via the links provided, with 93% of these inaccessible links occurring where supplementary data

SUBMITTER: Anderson NR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1481620 | biostudies-literature | 2006 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature