[Air-L] Antw: Re: Inclusion of short links in academic publications?

Tue Jul 26 06:16:07 PDT 2011

Colleagues,

 I have been following this thread with interest and I feel it's time to
contribute. I think it's interesting if a standard evolved on how short
links should be used within academic research. I recall a recent case for a
conference where a colleague of mine included short links in his paper to
see what the reviewers would say.

Not surprisingly, the reviewers told him to include full links as references
would not look reliable in the eyes of a reader. To me, this was not a
strong argument.

Plus, a previous writer said that we don't know how long sites such as
bit.ly last or if they disappear over time. This as well is not a good
argument because the same risk exist with every full link included in a
paper. There is of course a difference between a paper that is  completely
based on bit.ly and a paper that only contain one bit.ly-link. The former
will become less referenced over time as none of it's references work which
won't allow researchers to verify the content.

However, I'm for short link services and specifically one that is aimed at
the academic community and financed by it. I want to bring to your attention
that there is a software which allows anyone to create short links. It's
called.. yes, you guessed it: Shorty.

Website information here:
http://get-shorty.com

Live demo here:
http://get-shorty.com/live

In line with what Johann expressed, I would be happy to initiate together
with others a service like this for researchers that would not just allow
the creation of short links, but also collaboration of references.

Kind regards,
Montathar
--
Montathar Faraon
PhD Candidate
Södertörn University
School of Communication, Media and Information Technology
Alfred Nobels allé 7
S-141 89 Huddinge
Sweden
Telephone: +46 (0)8 - 608 40 82
Fax: +46 (0)8 - 608 42 10
Mobile: +46 (0)73 - 566 97 27
Skype: kexxcream

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 2:34 PM, Johann Hoechtl <
Johann.Hoechtl at donau-uni.ac.at> wrote:

> Ironically, the link doesn't work for me - Time out.
>
> Albeit the idea is appealing! I still think it's a good idea to work with
> short links for ease of readability and facilitate manual entry of web
> addresses in a browser. A corresponding short - to - longlist in the
> appendix of the paper should be enough for a wayback machine.
>
> A short-url service specifically for acedemic research would also be a
> great starter for collaborative url collection, but I am digressing ...
>
> Johann
>
> >>> Monica Barratt <tronica at gmail.com> schrieb am 26.07.2011 um 14:09 in
> Nachricht
> <CAF9Ekp1j_i6853QXnixKN3A6upFO1z63+caW0Sc24aZr0Q75Yg at mail.gmail.com>:
> > Does anyone have an opinion on using webcitation as an archiving service?
> > http://www.webcitation.org/faq
> >
> > They seem to be made for this kind of work. I was considering using
> > them in my thesis reference list and was thinking about including the
> > short URL only, but can see now that maybe that's not the best idea.
> > However, webcitation claim they won't 'disappear' down the track. I
> > guess that's been said before!
> >
> > Cheers
> > Monica
> >
> >
> >
> > On 26 July 2011 13:33, Denise N. Rall <denrall at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Dear Johan  -
> >>
> >> At my uni, they move the papers into a digital repository called bpress.
> > There are digital repositories on the market as well.
> >>
> >> Each paper included contains the last draft the researcher submitted for
> > publication which avoids copyright tangles (apparently). Other works
> included
> > on the page are cleared for copyright by our library staff.
> >>
> >> bpress generates its own statistics on how many times each reference
> (paper
> > or thesis, etc.) has been accessed. So one always knows how many times
> the
> > paper has been accessed. So do the administrators.
> >>
> >> Cheers, Denise
> >>
> >> Dr Denise N. Rall, Research Assistant, School of Health & Human Sciences
> >> Exhibitor, Art in Chemistry, NeXT Gallery, Magellan St., Lismore,
> >> Opening Thursday 18 August 18 5-7 PM, On display 8-26 August, 2011
> >> Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 Fax +(61)(0)2 6624 5380
> >> http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/
> >>
> >>
> >> --- On Sat, 23/7/11, Joseph Reagle <joseph.2011 at reagle.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>> From: Joseph Reagle <joseph.2011 at reagle.org>
> >>> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Antw: Re: Inclusion of short links in academic
> > publications?
> >>> To: "Johann Hoechtl" <Johann.Hoechtl at donau-uni.ac.at>
> >>> Cc: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> >>> Received: Saturday, 23 July, 2011, 1:03 AM
> >>> On Friday, July 22, 2011, Johann
> >>> Hoechtl wrote:
> >>> > If you are the one who created the shortlinks, it's
> >>> likely that you have the ability to track how many times it
> >>> was clicked (if you register at the shortening service)
> >>>
> >>> OK, understood.
> >>>
> >>> > * If you happen to publish a paper in a (closed)
> >>> journal you are able to interpolate a figure how often your
> >>> submission was read (if there is a statistical figure how
> >>> many paper readers actually follow references, footnotes or
> >>> plain internet links). Did the reviewers took a deep look
> >>> into your references? From that you can derive a, admittedly
> >>> problematic, cost-value ratio of the journal.
> >>>
> >>> Ah, I was thinking the primary thing I'd want to know was
> >>> how many people read my paper but that's not something I'd
> >>> have access to. But I can see your interpolation point
> >>> though I'd be cognizant that (again) there are many services
> >>> out there.
> >>>
> >>> As to other reasons (usefulness of my sources, and
> >>> countries and such), those haven't been too compelling to
> >>> me, and I'll note that this might steal page rank link juice
> >>> -- since references to things will now have multiples URLs.
> >>> _______________________________________________
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