Ivan Oransky

Weekend reads: ‘Foul play’ among protective scholars; how to increase rigor; science and a ‘culture of misinformation’

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

A stolen manuscript, part two: The plagiarist begs for forgiveness as another group plagiarizes the same work
A paper claimed to describe ‘the first potent and specific anti-COVID-19 drug.’ Now it’s retracted.
Medical school dean up to five retractions
Chemistry group at Hokkaido up to three retractions
Researcher attacks journal for retracting his paper on COVID-19 drug

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 236. There are more than 34,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

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

Weekend reads: Researcher has paper retracted, then earns promotion; is peer review ‘more cavalier, self-serving, and ignorant?’; a ‘weird notice’ for all a publisher’s papers

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Want to know whether that journal is scamming you? Introducing the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker
Cornell food marketing researcher who retired after misconduct finding is publishing again
Urology researcher under investigation for double-dipping has another paper retracted
A hare-raising expression of concern after an author hires a third party to get a paper published
Former Weill Cornell cancer researcher up to 20 retractions; investigation’s findings are with Feds
Widely touted abstract on ivermectin and COVID-19 retracted

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 229. There are more than 34,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

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

Want to know whether that journal is scamming you? Introducing the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker

Have you heard about hijacked journals?

Hijacked journals mimic legitimate journals by adopting their titles, ISSNs, and other metadata. Usually, hijacked journals mirror legitimate journals without permission from the original journal. In rare instances, publishers will buy rights to a legitimate journal but continue the publication under considerably less stringent publishing protocols and without clearly noting to the reader the change in ownership or publication standards (sometimes known as “cloned” journals).

Scholars can be duped into publishing in hijacked journals – many of which require fees – by offers of fast publication and indexing in databases such as Scopus; being indexed in such databases is viewed by many universities and governments as a mark of legitimacy. Even the WHO’s COVID literature database has been fooled.

We’re hoping to put an end to that sort of thing: Introducing the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker.

Weekend reads: Female driver stereotypes; ‘stealth research’; AI comes to fake scientific images

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Journal about ‘ambient intelligence’ retracts more than 50 papers at once
The “internet may be a challenging venue”: Biomedical engineering group up to four retractions
Drug researchers in Russia have four papers subjected to expressions of concern
‘Inadvertently published’ paper by pharma employee retracted almost a year later

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 227. There are more than 34,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

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

Journal about ‘ambient intelligence’ retracts more than 50 papers at once

Perhaps the Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing needs to look for a different kind of smarts.

The journal – a Springer Nature title – has just retracted 51 papers. The episode is the latest in a string of high-volume retractions by major publishers of papers included in special issues. In at least five cases, editors have claimed that their peer review processes were scammed by what some have called rogue editors.

All of the Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing retractions begin this way:

Weekend reads: Dogs removed from controversial research facility; ‘an unacceptable idea’; ‘blind spots on western blots’

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Journal retracts paper listed on authorship for sale site following Retraction Watch report
How citation cartels give ‘strategic scholars’ an advantage: A simple model
Kale ‘miracle food’ paper retracted for being ‘word salad’
After we tried to correct claims about ‘deadly’ water filters in Flint, we were accused of scientific misconduct—and that was just the beginning
Failed to properly register your trial? Just use a different study’s number. Actually, don’t.

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 227. There are more than 33,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

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

Journal retracts paper listed on authorship for sale site following Retraction Watch report

An Elsevier journal has retracted a paper that was listed by a firm claiming to sell authorships months after we reported on the site.

On Sept. 7, 2021, we published a story about the company, Teziran. On Sept. 14, pseudonymous sleuth Artemisia Stricta wrote to Ioannis Ieropoulos, the editor of Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, which had published one of eight papers listed by Teziran as “ready for acceptance”:

Weekend reads: Why was a paper’s acceptance rescinded?; kinder peer review; plagiarism in a plagiarism atonement essay

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Journal retracts C-section paper with ‘impossible’ data
‘A terrifying experience’: A team of researchers does the right thing when they find an error
Another ivermectin-COVID-19 paper is retracted
A college that doesn’t exist. An email address that goes dark. Who wrote this paper?
‘Conclusions related to vaccine safety are not validated’: COVID-19 spike protein paper retracted

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 226. There are more than 33,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

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

A college that doesn’t exist. An email address that goes dark. Who wrote this paper?

Alexander Templeton works at the math library of Glen Liberty Community College in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

At least that’s what a paper, “A bibliometric analysis of Atangana-Baleanu operators in fractional calculus,” Templeton appears to have published in the Alexandria Engineering Journal claims. But no Glen Liberty Community College appears to exist in Scottsbluff – or anywhere – and the Gmail address Templeton used as contact information no longer works. (There is a Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsbluff, but no Glen Liberty.)

Weekend reads: ‘The science crisis’; Peru president plagiarism probe; does a Nature cover help or hurt citations?

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Elsevier retracts papers when it realizes one of the authors hid fact he was guest editor of issue
UPenn prof retracts three papers for ‘substantive questions’

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 223. There are more than 33,000 retractions in our database — which powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

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

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