Publishing journal articles online opens up a wide variety of options: hyperlinking references, including video and audio, archiving data along with the article, etc. (You can see some ideas about future scientific articles from Elsevier and Cell here). Most of these options are not normally exercised, and most users still view journal articles as online PDF’s, which they then either save or print.
Sometimes these PDF’s including an often annoying page at the front or back re-stating copyright information or indicating that the material was downloaded through a particular institutions subscription.
Just today, I downloaded an article from an August issue of Science and was pleasantly surprised that this ‘cover page’ actually included some useful information. In addition to providing the normal article metadata, the links provided may actually be useful, at least to those with a subscription.
I especially noted the first item in the list of links informing readers that there had been a correction (in this case a relatively minor correction to a figure), and links to articles cited by this paper, including those articles available for free.
I wondered if a similar method was used when a paper was retracted. A brief search turned up the PDF of a retracted paper published in 2006 and retracted in 2007. Across the first page of the article in red letters was printed:
At the end of the PDF of the 2006 article was the text of the “Editorial Expression of Concern” published 7 months later, and the official retraction of the paper published 9 months after that.
So here, in one PDF document, we have the history of this paper.
This is vital for the undergraduate students I serve. Without this, a student would have no idea that an article had been retracted for any reason. This is just one more tool to help novice scientists get into the world of their scientific disciplines.
the Undergraduate Science Librarian 