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The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- The Retraction Watch Database becomes completely open – and RW becomes far more sustainable
- Overturning a dubious retraction proves difficult for education professor
- Turmoil at Sage journal as retractions mount
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to well over 350. There are now nearly 43,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains 200 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- “The deal announced today will link information about the 42,000 retractions in Retraction Watch’s database to Crossref’s digital object identifier system in return for $775,000 over 5 years.”
- “We do nothing but complain about the gray fog of lies that engulfs us in these times of political polarization and digital ferocity.”
- Italian minister’s papers contain evidence of image issues, says report.
- Carlo Croce, the Ohio State cancer researcher whose house and art collection are at risk of being sold by his lawyers to cover his debts, now sues Sotheby’s, saying they undervalued his art when he needed a loan. More here.
- “AI destroys principles of authorship. A scary case from educational technology publishing.”
- “Some professors at the Business School have also received emails from Harvard’s Office of the General Counsel asking them to refrain from speaking out about the Gino case or the school’s new tenure policies.”
- “Community-developed checklists for publishing images and image analyses.”
- “This alternative way to measure research impact made judges cry with joy.”
- “Previous scientific revolutions have been led by academic journals and laboratories. Robots might create the next one.”
- “Chinese academic database fined over privacy breaches.”
- “Scientist shocks peers by ‘tailoring’ climate study.” But what did it prove?
- Among 453 manuscripts in biomedicine published from 2016 to 2021, “50.1% of them fail to share the analytical code.”
- “Is it new, is it true and do we care—the role of prospective review registration.”
- “In 2021, only 0.6 per cent of scientific publications in Quebec were in French, compared to four per cent in the early 2000s.”
- “Marc Tessier-Lavigne steps down from Regeneron board.”
- “Swap authorship for ‘movie credits’ approach…”
- “You do not receive enough recognition for your influential science.”
- For editors and publishers, “the 24-hour attention required to prevent untruths and downright lies getting into the publication record does take a toll.”
- An academic governance nonprofit CEO is out “following allegations of plagiarism in a column.”
- “Is sustainability research the victim or saviour of a broken academic publishing system?”
- “Philadelphia Inquirer Deletes Article Critical of Controversial Sixers Arena.”
- “Fostering trust through transparent peer review.” A webinar on Sept. 26 featuring our Ivan Oransky.
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Re: Croce’s latest suit: I’ll have to see if I can get copies of the exhibits, but it seems that this could be dismissed for failure to state a claim. He doesn’t say in the complaint that he had any type of contract or agreement with Sotheby’s, only that they were working through the loan process, which seems to be merely a due diligence phase. Their obligation to appraise artwork at this point is *for their own benefit*, and as he states, he knows they have an incentive to be conservative in the values and provenance since they are at risk if they extend the loans. I don’t see how they owe him any obligation prior to extending the loan, which they didn’t do. The fact that they later used their information about his collection (given to them voluntarily) to enter into an agreement with the creditors, seems irrelevant if they had no agreement with Croce.
I did read the exhibits. They referred to some documents provided to Croce by Sotheby’s, but don’t describe it in detail or include a copy. They do quote general information available on Sotheby’s website, and in my opinion, misstate some of that information.
Puzzlingly, the claim states multiple times that the statement, “the loan process would take at least 30 days,” was violated because it took longer than 30 days. Further it states that “Croce emphasized in statements to Sotheby’s that he expected the process to take at least 30 days as he needed the funds quickly.” They seem to completely misunderstand what “at least” means, thinking it means “no longer than,” rather than “no shorter than.”
In any case, there seems to be no evidence presented that Sotheby’s ever agreed to extend the loan on any terms, only that they were doing due diligence in advance of potentially offering a loan.
Called it – dismissed for failure to state a claim 12/18/2023
Oh, my mistake, this is just the filing of the motion to dismiss.
Croce has requested an extension of time to file his response to the motion to dismiss. Says this request is unopposed.
“The basis for this Motion is the holiday season, as well as, the Plaintiff’s need for ample time in which to prepare a response to Defendants’ Motion To Dismiss. The Plaintiff’s response
to Defendants’ Motion To Dismiss is currently due on January 8, 2024. The requested new date in which to respond is January 29, 2024.”