citatiestatus

Citatiestatus is a data concept used in bibliographic databases and reference-management platforms to describe the current state of a citation within a scholarly work or dataset. It captures whether a cited item is considered valid, under review, corrected, updated, retracted, unavailable, or otherwise altered since its original publication. The term is used in systems that track the provenance and credibility of citations in real time or near real time.

In practice, a citatiestatus entry is attached to each citation and includes fields such as the identifier of the cited work (for example a DOI or ISBN), the status value, a timestamp of the most recent change, and a note or source indicating why the status changed. The status may be updated by publishers, indexing services, or curatorial teams within libraries and research platforms.

The purposes of citatiestatus are to improve data quality, transparency, and trust in scholarly communication. Researchers can assess the reliability of cited sources, while publishers and librarians can monitor the integrity of reference lists and alert readers to retractions, corrections, or significant updates. For bibliometric analyses, citatiestatus adds a dynamic dimension to citation counts by distinguishing stable, updated, or invalid references.

Limitations include inconsistent adoption across platforms, potential delays in updating statuses, and varying definitions of status categories. Effective use depends on standardization of status values and clear provenance information. Citatiestatus remains most valuable when integrated with broader metadata ecosystems that include identifiers, versioning, and retraction notices.