Journal about ‘ambient intelligence’ retracts more than 50 papers at once

Perhaps the Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing needs to look for a different kind of smarts.

The journal – a Springer Nature title – has just retracted 51 papers. The episode is the latest in a string of high-volume retractions by major publishers of papers included in special issues. In at least five cases, editors have claimed that their peer review processes were scammed by what some have called rogue editors.

All of the Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing retractions begin this way:

The Editor-in-Chief and the publisher have retracted this article. This article was submitted to be part of a guest-edited issue. An investigation concluded that the editorial process of this guest-edited issue was compromised by a third party and that the peer review process has been manipulated. Based on the investigation’s findings the Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions of this article.

That statement is followed in many cases by 

The authors have not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction.

But in some cases a line like this appears:

Author R. Venkatesan does not agree to this retraction. Author Sampath Kumar Palaniswamy has not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction.

Springer Nature journals are responsible for more than 400 of the “rogue editor” retractions, by our count. Last November, one of its journals retracted 44 at once, as part of a mass withdrawal following more than 400 expressions of concern about papers that were full of gibberish.

Hat tip: Smut Clyde

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