Weekend reads: The future of a federal US watchdog; a publisher plans massive layoffs; the plagiarism arms race

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Neri Oxman accused of lifting from article whose plagiarism led to downfall of concussion expert
• Exclusive: COPE threatens Elsevier journal with sanctions for ‘clear breakdown’ before seven retractions
• Studies claiming Islamic practices protect against disease and sexual harassment retracted
• Journals retract six Didier Raoult papers for ethics violations
• MDPI journal still publishing ‘cruel and unnecessary’ research despite extra checks, campaigners say

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to over 375. There are more than 46,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over 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? Or The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• “Unless its charter is revised by Congress, the ORI can sadly do little more than tinker at the edges of scientific fraud.” A Science editorial co-authored by our Ivan Oransky.
• Frontiers plans to lay off 30% of its 2000 staff.
• “We’ve now entered this sort of plagiarism arms race. If we’re not careful, we could end up with mutually assured destruction.”
• “How an Indian dental college climbed the ranks: A bibliometric analysis with emphasis on self-citation.” This may sound familiar.
• “The biggest threat to research comes from within.”
• “Plagiarism policing serves democracy, not white, Western supremacy.”
• “Plagiarism is not always easy to define or detect.”
• “Proper citation of research by journalists is necessary for more trustworthy news.”
• “Gatekeepers or gatecrashers? The inside connection in editorial board publications of Turkish national journals.”
• “‘On the ruins of seriality’: The scientific journal and the nature of the scientific life.”
• “How to address the geographical bias in academic publishing.”
• “These journals prioritise profit over academic integrity, tarnishing the scholarly publishing landscape.”
• “Breaking free from academic scams: Five key reflections on the cloned journal conundrum.”
• “How do editors use editorials to lead their journals? Insights from the field of human resource management.”
• “In conclusion, the article highlights the substantial positive effects that adherence to research ethics and integrity have on the academic well-being of scholars.”
• “Is there a ‘difference-in-difference’? The impact of scientometric evaluation on the evolution of international publications in Egyptian universities and research centres.”
• “Predatory journals in dermatology: a bibliometric review.”
• “How do referees integrate evaluation criteria into their overall judgment? Evidence from grant peer review.”
• “Science Has a Major Fraud Problem. Here’s Why Government Funding Is the Likely Culprit.”
• “On Plagiarism: Don’t Let the Billionaires Drive the Bus.”
• “The inclusion of the term ‘international’ in journal titles elicits mixed opinions, with some associating it with low quality or predatory journals, a perception that stems from the proliferation of predatory journals in some Asian and African countries.”
• “Predatory publishing in medical education: a rapid scoping review.”
• “[O]ur method outperforms previous methods for synthetic Western blot detection.”
• “After retractions, Alzheimer’s scientist is left cleaning up a prolific collaborator’s mess.”
• The attorney general of Mexico City is accused of plagiarism.
• How Retraction Watch and Crossref are “Collaborating to Improve the Assessment of Scholarly Outputs.”
• A paper on “bubble fusion” earns an editor’s note. Read the PubPeer comments, and a story in the Italian press.
• New York City’s “Mayor Eric Adams wants to pull a book off the shelves — his own.”
• “Not-for-profit scholarly publishing might not be cheaper – And that’s OK.”
• “How colleges can head off plagiarism wars.”
• “Physicians who oversaw diagnostic manual’s revision had pharma funding.”
• “Simine Vazire hopes to fix psychology’s credibility crisis.”
• “ESPN used fake names to secure Emmys for ‘College GameDay’ stars.”

Special thanks this week to James Butcher’s Journalology newsletter for several of these items.

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