OSCR

Correcting a record's links

The harvester can miss a repository, take data for code, or cite a tool the authors only used. The people who know best, the paper's authors and its code's maintainers, can correct the record's links themselves.

Who may correct

  • A verified author of the paper (how one becomes one): any of its links.
  • A maintainer of one of its code repositories, its owner, or a public member of its organization, on GitHub (or a maintainer the operator made): that repository (say what it is, or remove it) and new links.

Being a contributor of a repository does not give this right, even when GitHub shows the contributor as a maintainer: a single merged pull request makes someone a contributor. A contributor may ask the paper's authors, who can correct the record (what only verified people can do).

What can be corrected

Only the links can be corrected, with these changes (free text and markup are not accepted):

  • add a link, as the authors' code or as their data (it is checked like a submission's link: it must point to a place the registry knows, and it must answer);
  • remove a link;
  • say what a link is: the authors' code, their data, or a tool they used.

The bibliographic record (title, authors, journal) comes from the paper's own published metadata. The site does not edit it; the publisher corrects a mistake in it.

How

  1. Open the paper's page, signed in, and go to its Contribute section.
  2. Under "Correct its record", choose the changes (up to ten at once) and, if you wish, a short note (500 characters, no address).
  3. Send. The site checks each added link at once and records the correction.

What happens next

OSCR's harvester applies the correction: it verifies the added repositories (commit, licence, scripts), concludes the paper's status again, and stores a new version of the record. A correction stays in force after every later scan of the paper, because the harvester does not overwrite a person's correction. The page's Versions section lists it as "a correction by a verified author" or "by a maintainer of its code", without a name; the record of who made it stays on the operator's computer. Your account page shows its status (queued, applied or refused, with the reason).

Anything else wrong

  • A match that pairs the wrong paragraph and lines: say it in a correction's note.
  • You are an author but not recognized: claim the paper.
  • Something should not be on the site at all: request its removal.

At most 20 corrections a day per account.