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The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- Publisher investigating all of an author’s papers following reporting by Retraction Watch
- Highly criticized paper on dishonesty retracted
- Authors who don’t disclose conflicts of interest? “[W]e cannot force them to do so,” says editor
- Former Emory division director committed misconduct, says federal watchdog
- Highly cited paper marks 14th retraction for Chinese Academy of Sciences researcher
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 155. And there are now 30,000 retractions in our database.
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- “The ‘Plagiarism Hunter’ Terrorizing the German-Speaking World.”
- “China Initiative aims to stop economic espionage. Is targeting academics over grant fraud ‘overkill’”?
- “The World Bank canceled a prominent report rating the business environment of the world’s countries after an investigation concluded that senior bank management pressured staff to alter data affecting the ranking of China and other nations.”
- “An investigation into allegations of data manipulation in research papers and harassment of junior researchers at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, has concluded that the institution was economical with the truth.”
- “Cash for skills: A Japanese academic reveals her experience publishing with anonymous help.”
- “You will hear why he has had some of his worst experiences as a scientist working on infection control projects, including legal threats and personal attacks on his character.”
- “The Ethics of Health Professions Education Research: Protecting the Integrity of Science, Research Subjects, and Authorship.”
- “The number and distribution heterogeneity highlights the need to increase awareness and create regulatory documents on research integrity in Brazilian universities.”
- “We posit that research using hacked data should be deemed ethically problematic.”
- “A Survey-Weighted Analytic Hierarchy Process to Quantify Authorship.”
- “Peer Review as an Evolving Response to Organizational Constraint.”: “[T]he ongoing evolution of the review model has not been driven by intellectual considerations.”
- “After Covid-19 Data Is Deleted, NIH Reviews How Its Gene Archive Is Handled.”
- “Swedish research misconduct agency swamped with cases in first year.”
- The Australian Research Council “has reversed its decision to ban preprint material from being cited in funding applications.”
- “A Surge in Pandemic Research Shines a Spotlight on Preprints.”
- “Preprint advocates must also fight for research integrity.”
- “Medical publishing: a flawed model in dire need of reform.”
- COVID-19’s impact on academic productivity.
- “Reproducibility: expect less of the scientific paper.”
- “The Impact of False Investigators on Grant Funding.”
- Why do researchers think that scientists commit misconduct?
- “Much-Cited Study on Ivermectin and Infertility Is Old, Less than Relevant.”
- “Don’t make early career researchers ‘ghost authors.’ Give us the credit we deserve.”
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Re: “Don’t make early career researchers ‘ghost authors.’ Give us the credit we deserve”: Whether to name in the Acknowledgements vs. include as an Author can require careful judgement, but use of another’s words, thoughts, or ideas – without attribution – is plagiarism, pure and simple.
The Mainichi Shinbun article presents the same odd false dilemma: “They provided support including in correcting the writing, structuring it, as well as aiding in data analysis and the creation of graphs.”
The first two of these four named services are also provided by Editage, which is ubiquitous in Japan. I know at least some researchers list Editage in acknowledgements; I hope all of them do. There should be no shame in it, and I agree with you that it’s bad practice not to acknowledge. The Mainichi article seems to assume that there’s malpractice going on with a service like this, but it’s only malpractice if people are too scared of social consequences to openly acknowledge assistance in normal scientific fashion, which really is the the most serious and widespread problem for Japanese researchers.
The “ghost authors” article does promote reflection. Indeed, I’ve observed inclusion authors on papers who have worked on a project, but who have made no substantial contribution to a particular paper, perhaps out of fear of a dispute.
The writer of the “ghost authors” article does make the case of a contribution by generating data and figures, although that doesn’t *necessarily* imply authorship is warranted: it is possible or even common to collect data and generate figures without making a scientific contribution or even having an appreciation for the scientific question of interest.
“Much-Cited Study on Ivermectin and Infertility Is Old, Less than Relevant.”
The age and lower relevance of the paper in question is perhaps less important than its presence in a garbage journal from a predatory publisher – almost as if its claims had been made up, to fill a gap in someone’s CV.