Here’s something we haven’t seen before: A journal based in Serbia recently began listing all the articles it has retracted, all due to plagiarism.
Although preventing plagiarism is hardly a new goal for journals, creating a web page dedicated to retractions is certainly a novel attempt. (Even the home page has a link to the page, called “Retracted Articles.”)
This past February, the Journal of Process Management – New Technologies International did exactly that. Currently, this page on the journal’s website features five papers, all retracted in 2016, along with links to notices which indicate the original, plagiarized article.
First, let’s list the notice for “Impact of shopper’s creativeness on shopping methods: A case-study of students of University of Delhi (India),” published in 2014:
At the initiative of the Editorial Board Journal of Process Management – New Technologies and with the consent of the authors, paper of the author Upadhyaya, M., Impact of shopper’s creativeness on shopping methods: A case-study of students of University of Delhi (India) – which was published in JPMNT – Journal of Process Management – New Technologies, Volume 2 Issue 3, July 2014 (41-47), withdraws is because it is a plagiarism paper of the authors Olumide Olasimbo Jaiyeoba, Frederick Odongo Opeda, Impact of Consumer Innovativeness on Shopping Styles: A Case-Study of Limkokwing University Students (Botswana), Business and Management Horizons ISSN 2326-0297 2013, Vol. 1, No. 2.
We contacted the journal — which is not indexed by Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science, formerly part of Thomson Reuters — to find out more about its unique way of keeping track of retractions.
The journal’s spokesperson Ana Kostić Stošić explained that the journal began publishing its quarterly issues in 2013, and in 2015 wanted to make its editorial process more rigorous. To do so, the journal partnered with the Centre for Evaluation in Education and Science (CEES), which subsequently scanned all published papers for plagiarism. Based on that assessment, the journal determined that five articles had been plagiarized.
Of course, at many journals it’s possible to find retractions by performing a search. So why create a link that lists all of them? The journal’s editor-in-chief Predrag Trajković told us that the list represents the journal’s attempt to deter authors from plagiarizing, and ultimately enhance the “global quality and value” of papers:
A single list is inserted that authors see. The authors should not send plagiarism when they see that such works are retracted.
Trajković explained that since January 2016, the journal now routinely assesses all submitted papers for plagiarism before they are accepted and published. The journal details its anti-plagiarism efforts in its editorial policy guidelines:
Editorial Board applies the iThenticate (CrossRef and CrossCheck) service for verifying the originality of submitted papers and for preventing duplicate publishing and plagiarism.
The editorial policy also lays out the journal’s stance on plagiarism prevention:
Any manuscript which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected. In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described under Retraction policy.
The JPMNT was included on librarian Jeffrey Beall’s now-defunct list of potential predatory publishers. In the past, we have noticed that some journals on that list have gone out of their way to adhere to good retraction practice, perhaps to garner praise.
Below are the other four retracted papers and their corresponding notices. Here’s the retraction notice for “Developments of public internal financial and control systems in Albania,” published in 2015:
At the initiative of the Editorial Board Journal of Process Management – New Technologies and with the consent of the authors, paper of the author Halili, K., Developments of public internal financial and control systems in Albania,- which was published in JPMNT – Journal of Process Management – New Technologies, Volume 3 Issue 4, October 2015 (67-75), is withdrawn, because it is a plagiarism of paper from the internet side: http://146.255.84.91/files/u10/l_Financial_Control_in_Republic_of_Macedonia.pdf.
Next, the retraction notice for “A new approach to mass customization to modern customer,” published in 2014:
At the initiative of the Editorial Board Journal of Process Management – New Technologies and with the consent of the authors, paper of the authors Milutinović, M., Mihić, M., A new approach to mass customization to modern customer – which was published in JPMNT – Journal of Process Management – New Technologies, Volume 2 Issue 1, January 2014 (62-70), withdraws is because it is a plagiarism paper of the authors Mihic, S., Okanovic, I., A new approach to mass customization to modern customer, published in the journal Technics Technologies Education Management, Volume 6, Number 3, 2011.
Here’s the retraction notice for “Measuring and reporting of the healthcare systems performances,” published in 2014:
At the initiative of the Editorial Board Journal of Process Management – New Technologies and with the consent of the authors, paper of the authors Kostadinovski, A., Nikoloski, K., Matlievska, M., Measuring and reporting of the healthcare systems performances – which was published in JPMNT – Journal of Process Management – New Technologies, Volume 2 Issue 3, July 2014 (30-40), withdraws is because it is a plagiarism from the internet: http://www.myasp.net/; and whqlibdoc.who.int.
Finally, here’s the retraction notice for “Internet in the function of distance learning,” published in 2015:
At the initiative of the Editorial Board Journal of Process Management – New Technologies and with the consent of the authors, paper of the authors Milutinović, M., Kostadinović, A., Internet in the function of distance learning – which was published in JPMNT – Journal of Process Management – New Technologies, Volume 3 Issue 4, October 2015 (48-51), withdraws is because it is a plagiarism papers from the internet: Mandic, D., Distance learning, http://www.edu-soft.rs/cms/mestoZaUploadFajlove/rad1_.pdf.
Hat Tip: Rolf Degen
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