A Springer Nature journal retracted 34 papers earlier this month, including, ironically enough, one on how to detect fake news, which appeared in special guest-edited issues hacked by publication cheats.
Special issues have emerged over the past few years as particularly vulnerable to paper mills. Last March, we reported that Wiley was taking a $9 million write-down after its Hindawi subsidiary paused publication of such issues because they were badly hacked by paper mills.
“Hybrid deep learning model for automatic fake news detection,” from a group in Turkey led by Othman A. Hanshal, was published last February in Applied Nanoscience. The retraction notice reads:
The Publisher has retracted this article in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief. The article was submitted to be part of a guest-edited issue. An investigation by the publisher found a number of articles, including this one, with a number of concerns, including but not limited to compromised editorial handling and peer review process, inappropriate or irrelevant references or not being in scope of the journal or guest-edited issue. Based on the investigation’s findings the publisher, in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions of this article.
The authors have not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction.
A second paper in the journal, “Enhancement of voltage profile and generation of cost function by hybrid power flow controller using genetic algorithm,” also appeared last February from a group of researchers in Chennai, India.
According to the retraction notice:
The Publisher has retracted this article in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief. The article was submitted to be part of a guest-edited issue. An investigation by the publisher found a number of articles, including this one, with a number of concerns, including but not limited to compromised editorial handling and peer review process, inappropriate or irrelevant references or not being in scope of the journal or guest-edited issue. Based on the investigation’s findings the publisher, in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the results and conclusions of this article.
Author A. Murugan has not stated whether they agree or disagree with this retraction. Author V. Ramakrishnan has not responded to correspondence regarding this retraction.
A spokesperson for Springer Nature told us:
These papers were identified as part of our ongoing commitment to identifying and acting on papers of concern. When we become aware of such concerns, we investigate them carefully following an established process and in line with best-practice COPE guidelines. We are currently in the process of retracting 34 papers as a result of this investigation, which should be completed imminently.
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Why does the retraction notice not state who the guest editor responsible for accepting these papers is?
Guest editors cannot accept papers. Only the editor appointed by the board or publisher can send the manuscript to production. However, an irresponsible editor can accept the recommendation of a guest without checking the contents.
At least at Hindawi, they can; i.e., guest editors Can and do accept any papers they deem acceptable. Unfortunately!
Although Applied Nanoscience seems to publish many special issues, vol 13 (3) and 13 (4) 2023 where the 2 articles discussed here appear, do not indicate that status.
This, even though the phrase “The article was submitted to be part of a guest-edited issue” was included in both retraction notices.
The special editors’ names are included in the numbers marked special editors in this journal at least.
Seems a little strange.
A “Collection” on “Clean energy technologies and nano-catalyst” accounts for some of the retractions in Issues 13-1, 13-2 and 13-3 (also for many other papers that have been queried on PubPeer, but not retracted so far).
https://link.springer.com/collections/adjeeijabh
Editors: Dr. S. Manigandan, Dr. Indira Karuppusamy & Dr. Sri Ramkumar Vijayan
For most of the retractions, though, if there was a Special Issue and a Guest Editor responsible, the details have been sent down the memory hole. The Internet Archive could not help.
Now Springer is retracting several papers. Many of of those retracted papers have same statement of retraction, which shows that editors did not study/review and investigated these papers specifically one by one. Most of these papers are in SI. They should punish the guest editor’s, handling editors and editor in chief, rather than punishing the authors and affecting their career.
They are not even giving authors chance to listen them, and issue corrections.
I think, EIC or handling editor should be held accountable. It’s unjust to penalize authors only based on reviewer decisions, as the review process is primarily overseen by the journal. Even in cases of special issues where a guest editor manages the review process, the EIC bears the same responsibility as the GE.
The papers are reviewed by editors and reviewers, who ask the authors questions about all aspects of the paper. Once the reviewers or editors recommend acceptance, the paper is published. Therefore, the responsibility lies with those who select the paper, not the authors, as the authors’ careers can be impacted by this process. Why don’t journals take more responsibility for the work of authors during the review process, considering there are many software tools available to check and assess the quality of the work?
The papers are accepted by the journal after a peer-review process. So if there was any mistakes it should have been rejected. Instead after publishing it the publishers are retracting it stating that there were issues with the guest editors. Then, it is them who are responsible and made to answer and not us authors. Instead of doing it, you are retracting the papers which can affect the authors’ careers and make them go through a great deal of mental agony. So please reconsider the decision to retract the papers and rather take action against the guest editors who are responsible for this rather than punishing the authors.
If you look at the retraction notice, you’ll find plenty of issues that are most definitely linked to the authors. Irrelevant references, out of scope, those things don’t just happen solely because the guest editors are doing something they shouldn’t.