Reference Integrity Methodology and Scoring
Reference Integrity Methodology and Scoring
The IJPSC Reference Integrity Checker performs a technical audit of a PDF manuscript bibliography. It does not assess the scientific quality of a source and it does not determine plagiarism or academic misconduct.
Analysis stages
- Local PDF extraction: The manuscript is read in the visitor's browser. The PDF file is not uploaded to IJPSC.
- Reference-section detection: Recognized headings and bibliography patterns are used to identify the reference list.
- Reference parsing: DOI, URL, year, author names, title and source information are extracted with Unicode-aware rules.
- Metadata verification: DOI records are checked against Crossref and, where enabled, DataCite and OpenAlex.
- Citation alignment: Author-year or numeric in-text citations are compared with bibliography entries.
- Scoring: Separate scores are calculated for identity, DOI verification, metadata consistency, citation alignment and formatting completeness. Exact DOI resolution establishes bibliographic identity unless a contradictory DOI record or post-publication warning is detected.
How DOI evidence is weighted
An exact DOI resolution is treated as the strongest bibliographic identity signal. A missing final period, uncertain author parsing or a translated title is never sufficient on its own to create a critical error. Critical review is reserved for contradictions such as a DOI resolving to a clearly different work, a retraction signal, or a duplicate DOI assigned to multiple distinct entries.
Score dimensions
The report distinguishes identity verification from metadata formatting similarity. A correctly resolved DOI can verify the work even when PDF text extraction, title translation, author order or Cyrillic transliteration lowers individual field-comparison scores.
| Dimension | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Reference identity | How reliably the cited work can be identified from DOI and metadata. |
| DOI verification | Share of supplied DOI values that resolve to a scholarly metadata record. |
| Metadata consistency | Agreement between the reference text and verified title, authors, year and source. |
| Citation alignment | Coverage between in-text citations and bibliography entries. |
| Formatting completeness | Presence of basic bibliographic elements without treating style details as scientific errors. |
Risk adjustment and manual verification
The overall score is reduced for non-overridable critical signals such as a contradictory DOI record, duplicate DOI assignment or a retraction-related signal. Ordinary formatting observations receive little or no penalty. A user may mark an ambiguous item as manually verified, but this cannot override DOI contradictions, duplicate DOI conflicts or post-publication warnings.
Limitations
Metadata services can contain incomplete, translated or publisher-supplied records. Books, local publications and older sources may have no DOI. A successful technical match does not prove that the source was actually consulted or correctly interpreted. Every warning remains subject to human academic review.
Privacy
The PDF remains on the visitor's device. Only extracted reference strings or DOI identifiers are sent for external metadata verification. When a PDF report is requested, only the finished report data are sent to the IJPSC server for temporary PDF generation.