RefCheck: Academic Reference Verification

RefCheck is an open-source academic reference verification tool designed to help researchers, lecturers, editors, peer reviewers, and students assess the integrity of bibliographies. The software compares references against OpenAlex, Crossref, and DOI records, identifies grey literature, and flags citations that may be fabricated, incomplete, or otherwise difficult to verify.

Download RefCheck on GitHub

Development status: RefCheck v0.1 is the first public release. The software is intended as a first-pass reference verification resource and should complement rather than replace scholarly judgement. Users are encouraged to independently review any references flagged as suspicious.

RefCheck uses OpenAlex, Crossref, and DOI metadata records to assess bibliographic integrity, identify grey literature, and support editorial, educational, and research workflows.

Research resources

Datasets & corpora DAIS-C: Discussing Abstract Ideas in Schizophrenia Corpus Fought Disorder: A First-Person Psychosis Corpus

Research tools DOLI: Deciding on Literary Imagery Task RefCheck: Academic Reference Verification

Overview

RefCheck was developed to support research integrity by providing a rapid method for assessing whether references correspond to identifiable records within major scholarly databases. The software evaluates bibliographies against OpenAlex, Crossref, and DOI metadata records and highlights citations that may warrant further investigation.

Rather than determining whether a source is true or false, RefCheck evaluates the strength of available evidence supporting a citation and classifies references as verified, possible matches, suspicious references, or grey literature.

Methodology

RefCheck extracts bibliographic information from reference lists and compares candidate citations against OpenAlex, Crossref, and DOI metadata records. Matching procedures consider title similarity, author information, publication year, and other bibliographic indicators.

References that cannot be adequately verified are assigned higher risk scores and may be flagged as suspicious. The software also distinguishes between potentially problematic citations and forms of grey literature that may not be represented within conventional academic databases.

The software is intended as a practical aid for reference verification, editorial review, and research integrity rather than a definitive measure of citation validity.

Features

OpenAlex verification
Crossref verification
DOI resolution and checking
Grey literature identification
Reference risk scoring
CSV report export
HTML report generation
Open and modifiable source code

Applications

RefCheck may be useful for researchers working in:

Research integrity
Academic publishing
Peer review
Editorial workflows
Higher education
Literature review methodology
Scholarly communication
Open science

Use and access

RefCheck is available as an open-source research resource and may be adapted for use in editorial, educational, and research settings. Because the software can be run locally, users may analyse reference lists without uploading unpublished manuscripts, student work, or bibliographies to third-party services.

Related research

RefCheck forms part of a broader programme of work examining language, research integrity, scholarly communication, and the impact of emerging technologies on academic practice. The software complements resources such as the DOLI Task and DAIS-C corpus while addressing practical challenges associated with bibliography verification.

Together, these resources support transparent and reproducible approaches to knowledge production, evaluation, and communication across academic and clinical contexts.