Weekend reads: More allegations at Harvard; plagiarism euphemisms; citation cartels in math

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Journal takes 3 years to pull papers by researcher who committed misconduct
• Journal retracts 80 papers ID’d as paper mill products following sleuth’s report, Undark-Retraction Watch investigation
• Paper about clergy sexual abuses in South Korean churches retracted over ‘citation irregularities’
• Book retraction surfaces long-standing feud between South African academics

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to nearly 400. 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):

• Harvard “Neuroscientist Accused of Research Misconduct.”
• “Top Harvard Diversity Officer Sherri Charleston Faces Plagiarism Allegations.”
• “My Favorite Euphemisms for Plagiarism.” A plagiarism expert draws on our hit parade.
• “Citation cartels help some mathematicians—and their universities—climb the rankings.”
• An editorial board member reflects on the “significant turmoil” at a journal whose changes in leadership we reported on last month.
• What happened when a researcher tried to sting a leading scientific society’s peer review process?
• “How many authors are (too) many?”
• “The King of Curcumin: a case study in the consequences of large-scale research fraud.”
• “Announcing Reformscape: a new online tool to explore responsible academic career assessment and drive positive change.”
• “Open-data version of Leiden Ranking launched.”
• “Questionable research practices of medical and dental faculty in Pakistan – a confession.”
• “Supervisor suspended after students allege academic misconduct.”
• “Overcoming the ‘ostrich effect’: A narrative review on the incentives and consequences of questionable research practices in kinesiology.”
• “Criticism of statistical analysis on the origin of Corona.”
• “OSF Preprints to Implement Pre-Moderation Policy” to “ensure that content would not need to be withdrawn.”
• “Plagiarism, paper mills and profit: These scientists are fighting the epidemic of fraudulent science research.”
• “This work reveals an alarming preservation deficit” of the scholarly literature.
• “Overall, addressing the current ‘crisis of confidence’ in [industrial/organizational] IO psychology requires individual researchers, academic institutions, and publishers to embrace system-wide change.”
• “Weaponizing plagiarism will help restore faith in academic institutions.”
• “Receptivity toward retraction due to information hazards was unrelated to scientists’ engagement in activism, suggesting that formal scientific training affords researchers an ability to separate personal and professional values in scientific discourse.”
• “How I learnt to write research papers as a non-native English speaker.”
• “Sports Illustrated Issues Retraction On Reported WWE Royal Rumble / WrestleMania Plans.”
• “A scientific sleuth has shaken Dana-Farber.” Profiles of Sholto David in STAT and The Guardian. And a Q&A in The New York Times.
• “Leiden hospital’s academic status at risk due to shoddy fraud prevention.”
• “They want science to be and do better,” Oransky said. “And they are frustrated by how uninterested most people in academia — and certainly in publishing — are in correcting the record.”
• “Some of the debate about [COVID-19] preprints and quality clustered around retractions.”
• “How does bad data slip through? Allegations of research fraud raise questions about ‘peer review.’”
• “Journals need to provide better guidance for victims of plagiarism,” says a group whose story we covered.
• “Predatory journals are real but how we talk about them can be misguided.”
• DOAJ amends its special issues criteria after some note likely unintended consequences.
• “Michigan universities struggle with FOIA requests. It may be by design, experts say.” The story includes some of our experiences and thoughts.
• “[T]he vast majority of image-related issues still stem from honest mistakes,” says Dror Kolodkin-Gal, a co-founder of a company that sells screening tools.
• “The Second Digital Transformation of Scholarly Publishing.”

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