The week at Retraction Watch featured a retraction of a state senator’s paper, and an editor busted for citation boosting. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: The upside of predatory publishers; why no one replicates; the pain of manuscript submission
Author: Ivan Oransky
Editor resigns from two journals after “considerable” citation boosting attempts
An editor at two European Geosciences Union journals has resigned following revelations that he or she engaged in citation manipulation — boosting citations to his or her own papers and associated journals.
Here’s a letter announcing the news, signed by EGU publication committee chair Hubert Savenije, that ran in several EGU journals earlier this week: Continue reading Editor resigns from two journals after “considerable” citation boosting attempts
Weekend reads: Sugar paper tussle at a reunion; “Sex, lies, and video-taped experiments;” p-value harm?
The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a psychology paper because of manipulation by an unnamed graduate student, and a tale about the cost of being a whistleblower, even when you’re successful. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Sugar paper tussle at a reunion; “Sex, lies, and video-taped experiments;” p-value harm?
Weekend reads: Sabotage in the lab; a lab animal database disappears; PACE authors push back
The week at Retraction Watch featured the launch of the greatest journal ever, and a story about the backlash against widely covered research on why men eat more. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Sabotage in the lab; a lab animal database disappears; PACE authors push back
Welcome to the Journal of Alternative Facts. They’re the greatest! And winning!
Ever since Kellyanne Conway, counselor to U.S. President Donald Trump, used the term “alternative facts” on Meet The Press earlier this month, the term — an awful euphemism for falsehoods, as many have pointed out — has become a meme. And like every new field, alternative facts needs its own journal. Enter the Twitter feed for the Journal of Alternative Facts, featuring such gems as Scientistonce, I.A. (2017), “We Have All the Best Climates, Really, They’re Great.”
We spoke to the founding editor to find out more about how they became the greatest overnight: Continue reading Welcome to the Journal of Alternative Facts. They’re the greatest! And winning!
Weekend reads: Misbehaving medical academics; are phase I trials ethical?; the “sin” of mistakes
The week at Retraction Watch featured revelations about what happens when researchers unwittingly use a tool without permission, and a look at why women peer review less often than men. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Misbehaving medical academics; are phase I trials ethical?; the “sin” of mistakes
Weekend reads: A course on calling bullshit?; What closure of Beall’s list means; More preprint debate
The week at Retraction Watch featured the harrowing story of a would-be whistleblower subjected to a forced mental exam (part of our partnership with the news team at Science), and Jeffrey Beall’s site about predatory publishers going dark. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: A course on calling bullshit?; What closure of Beall’s list means; More preprint debate
Why did Beall’s List of potential predatory publishers go dark?
Jeffrey Beall, the University of Colorado Denver librarian who has since 2008 chronicled “potential, possible, or probable” predatory publishers, has — at least for now — pulled the plug on his influential, and at times controversial, site.
The decision to take down the site — and Beall’s faculty page at the Auraria Library, where he remains a tenured associate professor — was his own, the University of Colorado Denver tells Retraction Watch.
The site, scholarlyoa.com, which just earlier this month included a list of more than 1,000 such publishers, now contains no information. The sudden change was noted Sunday on Twitter, where questions about the move — catalogued, along with some answers, by Emil Karlsson — swirled for two days. Beall’s faculty page was also taken down. Continue reading Why did Beall’s List of potential predatory publishers go dark?
Breast cancer studies by fired Pfizer employee retracted
Last year, Pfizer fired one of its scientists following an investigation that ended with requests for retraction of five of her studies. Now, two of the five papers, which were first flagged on PubPeer, have been retracted.
One notice cites the Pfizer investigation, which found that cancer researcher Min-Jean Yin had included duplicated images in all five papers. Yin is the last author on both retracted papers.
Here’s the first notice from Clinical Cancer Research, which says most or all of the questioned images appear to be duplicates, and Pfizer — who sponsored the study and requested the retraction — can’t find the originals:
Continue reading Breast cancer studies by fired Pfizer employee retracted
Weekend reads: Citation cartels; less authorship credit for women; theft by peer reviewers
The week at Retraction Watch featured a discussion of whether peer reviewers should replicate experiments, and a look at whether social psychology really has a retraction problem. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Citation cartels; less authorship credit for women; theft by peer reviewers