Weekend reads: A climate change study correction; predatory journal critic banned from campus; why are publishers “the joint enemy?”

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The week at Retraction Watch featured the tale of the researcher who pleaded guilty to faking data and then published a paper on diet, the scientist who plagiarized a Harvard grant application, and the first-ever retraction from the U.S. CDC’s flagship journal. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• “Scientists behind a major study that claimed the Earth’s oceans are warming faster than previously thought now say their work contained inadvertent errors…” (Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis, Washington Post)
• “We need to stop thinking… that just because something is peer-reviewed means that it’s a Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” our Ivan Oransky tells Nicole Mortillaro of the CBC.
• Derek Pyne, who wrote about how his colleagues had published in predatory journals, has been banned from campus. (Ellie Bothwell, Times Higher Education) We interviewed Pyne in 2017.
• “[W]hy are research publishers too often regarded by others in the research community as the joint enemy?” asks the CEO of Springer Nature, Daniel Ropers.
• When it comes to authorship disputes, “Independent bodies that can offer alternative dispute resolution services to scientific collaborators and/or journals could quickly help research communities, particularly their most vulnerable members.” (Zen Faulkes, Research Integrity & Peer Review)
• “A study that looked at nearly 500 papers in 100 Africa-based journals found that 63% contained some form of plagiarism.” (Linda Nordling, Nature)
• “I think we can safely say that any paper whose own authors haven’t read it is unlikely to contain ground-breaking information.” (Mark Humphries, The Spike/Medium)
• “Predatory journals: Who publishes in them and why?” (Selcuk Besir Demir, Journal of Informetrics, sub req’d)
• A group of researchers presents “Revised Guidelines to Enhance the Rigor and Reproducibility of Research Published in American Physiological Society Journals.” (American Journal of Physiology)
• A crackdown in the UK on unreported clinical trial data is good news for researchers, says Till Bruckner. (ResearchResearch)
• “Will Blockchain Revolutionize Scholarly Journal Publishing?” A  startup’s hopes. (Alexander Kafka, Chronicle of Higher Education)
• “How should scientists deal with situations where more than just our pure scientific ideals are on the line?” The Black Goat podcast takes on conflicts of interest.
• “Mentors help authors say ‘no’ to predatory journals,” writes Marilynn Larkin. (Elsevier Connect)
• “The first and corresponding author sincerely apologizes for this and recognizes that failure to gather permission to publish from all authors and taking credit for work they have not contributed to is a form of misconduct…” (AIP Advances)
• “It is no longer enough for institutions conducting research to only have conflict of interest policies for individual researchers, they also must directly address the growing concern about institutional conflicts of interest.” (JAMA)
• A new study finds that “the rate of retractions is higher as the division of labor increases.” (Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management Research Conference)
• “When researchers at the drug giant Pfizer wanted to improve their clinical trials, the people who had taken part had a clear suggestion: researchers should say thank you.” (Nature)
• “Ultimately, we hope that StudySwap can be used to increase the efficiency with which psychology’s collective research resources are being used.” (Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, sub req’d)
• Given that a number of studies have been shown to fail to reproduce, can academic psychology be trusted? (BBC)
• A letter on “why retracted studies continue to be cited after they have been retracted.” (Int J Nursing Studies)
• Fake peer review has led to more than 600 retractions, an analysis of our database shows. (Journal of Korean Medical Science)
• France’s CNRS has produced a plan for scientific integrity. (CNRS)
• “An international group of university researchers is planning a new journal which will allow articles on sensitive debates to be written under pseudonyms,” reports Martin Rosenbaum of the BBC.
• The former executive director of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission says he’s “a victim of fake degree mafia.” (Waseem Abbasi, The News)
• “An essay by a prominent leftwing academic …has been targeted by a leading university using the government’s counter-terrorism strategy.” (Eleni Courea, The Observer)
• “Please assess the paper you are looking at – not the person.” (Rebecca Kirk, Scientists Are Humans)
• “Industry sponsors have responded to the ethical and legal demands of trial disclosure to a greater extent than non-industry sponsors, and now disclose three quarters of their trials.” (bioRxiv)
• “The social sciences have a credibility problem, and Berkeley’s Ted Miguel says economics is no exception.” (Tyler Smith, American Economic Association)
• “Science Is Getting Less Bang for Its Buck,” say Patrick Collison and Michael Nielsen. (The Atlantic)
• “NIH takes research misconduct seriously,” writes Michael Lauer, NIH’s deputy director for extramural research.
• “The main obstacles to better research data management and sharing are cultural,” write Marta Teperek and Alastair Dunning. “But change is in our hands.” (LSE Impact Blog)

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