Ten days after retracting nine papers from several journals because they were “lacking scientific base,” a publisher says it has “parted company” with the editor of five of the titles – who had authored or co-authored the papers in question.
As Retraction Watch reported last week, Thieme International retracted the papers, by Hüseyin Çaksen of Necmettin Erbakan University in Turkey, following criticism on social media and at least one story in the Turkish press. Yesterday, a Thieme account on X (formerly Twitter) posted:
We asked Thieme which editor the post referred to. A spokesperson told us:
In the matter you are referring to, we unfortunately discovered that Prof. Hüseyin Çaksen, in his function as the editor of five of our pediatric open access journals, had circumvented the allocation of roles, which is essential for a reliable peer review, without our knowledge. In doing so, he violated Thieme’s requirements and those of a proper peer review process. As a result, we have parted company with him with immediate effect.
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Where do the editor-in-chief and the production team stands in this issue? Did no one literally read these articles before giving approval for publishing? How could this editor assess other papers published on other 4 journals, and how one trusts the papers he was responsible to take through peer review? Does publisher Thieme doesn’t investigate the editors of its journals? This editor is their scapegoat but problem is probably bigger than what it looks like.
In June 2023 in this Facebook group we had already discussed this deeply and one of us at that time reported it to RetractionWatch to follow up on this case https://web.facebook.com/groups/reviewer2/posts/10160436471475469/