Abstract:
Purpose– This study aims to examine the availability and persistence of universal resource locators
(URLs)cited in scholarly articles published in selected health journals based in East Africa.
Design/methodology/approach– Four health sciences online journals in East Africa were selected for
this study. In this study, all Web citations in the selected journal articles covering the 2001-2015 period were
extracted. This study explored the number of URLs used as citations, determined the rate of URLs’ loss,
identified error messages associated with inaccessible URLs, identified the top domain levels of decayed
URLs, calculated the half-life of the Web citations and determined the proportion of recovered URL citations
through theInternet Wayback Machine.
Findings– Intotal, 822 articles were published between 2001 and 2015. There were in total 17,609 citations
of which, only 574 (3.3 per cent) were Web citations. The findings show that 253 (44.1 per cent) Web citations
were inaccessible and the “404 File Not Found” error message was the most (88.9 per cent) encountered. Top
level domains with country endings had the most (23.7 per cent) missing URLs. The average half-life for the
URLs cited in journal articles was 10.5 years. Only 36 (6.3 per cent) Web references were recovered through
the WaybackMachine.
Originality/value– This is a comprehensive study of East African health sciences online journals that
provides findings that raises questions as to whether URLs should continue to be included as part of
bibliographic details in the lists of references. It also calls for concerted efforts from various actors in
overcomingtheproblemofURLdecay.
