Weekend reads: Systemic fraud in China; science without journals; authorship rules decay

The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper that had been called “anti-vaccine pseudoscience,” a retraction following threats of violence against an editor, and an editorial board member’s resignation over how a journal handled a case of plagiarism. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• “Now, a recent string of high-profile scandals over questionable or discredited research has driven home the point in China that to become a scientific superpower, it must first overcome a festering problem of systemic fraud.” (Amy Qin, New York Times)
• “The ‘clean’ system of the future may well not involve scientific publications in their current form at all.” (Anthony L. Zietman,International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics)
• “One reason for the decrease of confidence in science is the decay of rules for authorship” of scientific papers. (Pediatric Diabetes, sub req’d)
• “So I call bullshit on journal publishers’ endless demands for hope labour, especially from PhD students. I recognise that academia needs a gift economy to operate, but it should be full time academics like myself doing the lion’s share.” (The Thesis Whisperer blog)
• “I don’t know that I should be congratulated on correcting an error, but sure, whatever.” Andrew Gelman reacts to an email.
• “Transparent peer review should be the norm for all academic journals and could be effective in combating the scourge of ‘predatory’ journals,” according to Irene Hames. (Yojana Sharma, Nature Index)
• “The goal is to create tools that can check whether manuscripts comply with the guidelines, potentially saving journal editors and authors rounds of lengthy rewrites and ensuring the final article contains the data and information needed to be useful to the scientific community.” (Brian Owens, Nature Index)
• “Male scientists are more likely to share their published work than are women — but only with other men, a study of hundreds of researchers has found.” (Jo Marchant, Nature)
• “Any attempt to change academic publishing, no matter how gradual, needs to be made with the revolutionary, even quixotic, intention of short-circuiting the larger system to which it’s attached.” (Maximillian Alvarez, Chronicle of Higher Education)
• How might Registered Reports enhance credibility? F1000’s Hollydawn Murray explains.
• What’s the Karolinska Institutet like a year after putting an action plan into place following the Macchiarini scandal? (Sara Nilsson, Science Business)
• “This morning I did a very mean thing. I saw an author announce to the world on Twitter that they had just published this paper, and I tweeted a critical comment.” (Dorothy Bishop, Bishop Blog)
• “’Peer review’ is younger than you think,” writes Ben Schmidt. “Does that mean it can go away?” (Sapping Attention Blog)
• Following news that Monsanto ghostwrote safety reviews of its own products, a non-profit calls for retractions.
• “In its current form, peer review offers few incentives for impartial reviewing efforts. Editors can help, but structural changes are more likely to have a stronger impact.” (Rafael D’Andrea & James P. O’Dwyer, PLOS One)
• A study examines 70 years of engineering retractions, finding the main reason for retraction was unethical conduct. (Ethics & Behavior)
• Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology join a group developing a platform to detect image manipulation.
• Data reporter Jason deBruyn uses Retraction Watch’s database to track holes in the scientific system in North Carolina. (WUNC)
• As publishers battle with sites that make copyrighted papers available, ResearchGate and Springer Nature announce a joint effort to explore how to share papers online while still protecting intellectual property rights. (Springer Nature)
• ResearchGate backs down in response to demands from publishers to take down large numbers of papers shared in violation of copyright. (Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed)
• “Well . . . publishers have a problem if their authors are feeling thwarted, even though they say their beef is with ResearchGate, not with those who use it.” (Barbara Fister, Insider Higher Ed)
• In the world of academic publishing, no one is ultimately responsible, because as James Heathers explains, the buck stops nowhere. (Medium)
• A slight change to PNAS’s description on its website reveals the importance of accepting that science isn’t perfect. (Andrew Gelman, Slate)
• A new legal interpretation by China’s highest court will impose harsh criminal liabilities on life science companies that falsify drug data. (Lexology) And see our co-founders’ piece in STAT from June for a brief overview.
• Inside Higher Ed seeks comment: Do we need new models for academic publishing?
• “It’s very serious and it’s quite frightening to think that someone could be manufacturing this kind of device without knowing the regulations that govern it.” (Hannah Devlin, The Guardian)
• A new study explores how hybrid open access models have evolved over the past few years as the options for authors to pay journals to make their papers freely available grow in number. (PeerJ)
• Replication isn’t just for scientific studies – even wine needs a replication project, apparently. (Retraction Watch on Twitter)
• A former editor of the British Journal of Diabetes is suspended for four months after fabricating both data and co-authors signatures. (Clare Dyer, The BMJ)
• Searching for the right journal to publish in is like making a long-term investment, and new online tools are available to help authors make that decision. (LSE Impact blog)

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