Category: malaysia

The dean who came to visit – and added dozens of authors without their knowledge

Kumba Digdowiseiso

Earlier this year, a group of lecturers in Malaysia received a WhatsApp message from a colleague who had made a disturbing discovery. 

The colleague, who wished to remain anonymous for this story, was looking through Google Scholar and noticed their name, and many others from their department, repeatedly appeared alongside that of an unfamiliar author: Kumba Digdowiseiso, dean of the economics and business faculty at Universitas Nasional in Jakarta, Indonesia.

“We didn’t even know who this person was,” said Safwan Mohd Nor, an associate professor of finance at the university, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, adding that he was “extremely angry” when he first found out his name had been used. 

Continue reading The dean who came to visit – and added dozens of authors without their knowledge

‘Stop playing with my life,’ researcher about to be up to 10 retractions asks sleuth

A researcher who used similar, related, or identical research to publish over 30 studies in various academic journals will have four more of those papers retracted, bringing his total to ten retractions, Retraction Watch has learned.

Hossein Mohammadhosseini was formerly listed as a researcher at the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Technology, Malaysia. His retracted papers all relate to a method to make more sustainable concrete by adding metalized plastic fibers, polypropylene fibers, and/or palm oil fuel ash.

Four of Mohammadhosseini’s studies are being retracted from the Journal of Cleaner Production. They are:

Continue reading ‘Stop playing with my life,’ researcher about to be up to 10 retractions asks sleuth

Energy researcher up to 18 retractions

A researcher in Malaysia is up to 18 retractions, for faked peer review and a host of other sins.

We first wrote about Shahaboddin Shamshirband, of the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, in early 2017, because Elsevier had pulled, or planned to pull, nine of his papers. Jeffrey Beall, known for his list of possible predatory publishers, had raised questions about duplication by Shamshirband in 2016 on his now-defunct blog, ScholarlyOA.

The most recent retraction for Shamshirband was for “Soft computing methodologies for estimation of energy consumption in buildings with different envelope parameters,” a 2016 paper in Energy Efficiency. Here’s the notice: Continue reading Energy researcher up to 18 retractions

Publisher retracts two papers, will correct five more for lab with high “level of disorganization”

A lab at the University of Malaya has lost two papers and will have to correct five more — just from one publisher — over poor lab practices.

One of the retracted papers paper tested the effects of a plant on liver damage; its notice says the paper contains overlap with another paper from the same lab that tested a different plant for the same effect — but to save time and cut costs, the authors tested both plants in animals at the same time, and collected their tissues using one kit and protocol.

The publisher (Hindawi) decided to take a second look at the work coming out of the lab of Mahmood Ameen Abdulla after people raised questions about some of his previous work, including a Scientific Reports paper that was corrected for mistaken duplications, according to Matt Hodgkinson, the head of research integrity at Hindawi. After Hindawi spotted problems, it contacted the institution, which investigated.

According to Hodgkinson, the UM investigation concluded the problems were due to errors, not deliberate misconduct. Hindawi plans to correct five more papers from Abdulla’s lab, after consulting with Hindawi’s board members following UM’s investigation:

Continue reading Publisher retracts two papers, will correct five more for lab with high “level of disorganization”

One way to boost your uni’s ranking: Ask faculty to cite each other

Readers who follow scientific publishing will know the term “citation stacking” — as a profile-boosting technique, we’ve seen journals ask authors to cite them, and individual scientists work together to cite each other, forming “citation cartels.” And now, we’ve seen a university do it.

A university in Malaysia has instructed its engineering faculty to cite at least three papers by their colleagues; the more citations a university accrues, the better its ranking in many international surveys. We obtained the original notice, dated August 3 and released by the University of Malaya, and translated it via One Hour Translation. Our English version says:

Continue reading One way to boost your uni’s ranking: Ask faculty to cite each other

Author surprised when publisher pulls three of her papers

A researcher is strongly objecting to a publisher’s decision to retract three of her papers from two computing journals without informing her first.

The reason: Self-plagiarism, which the author said stemmed from her PhD student using similar descriptions for the background sections of the papers. She argued that if the reviewers had flagged the duplication, she would have been happy to revise the papers before publication. A representative of the publisher, Springer, told us the overlap was extensive enough for the journal to determine the papers should be retracted.

We spoke with Sameem Abdul Kareem from the Department Of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Malaya in Malaysia, last author on all three papers, which she co-authored with her former PhD student Haitham Badi (also referred to as Haitham Hasan in several papers). She explained how the duplication occurred:

Continue reading Author surprised when publisher pulls three of her papers

Elsevier to retract six more papers by computer scientist, citing duplication and fake reviews

Yesterday we reported that Elsevier journals had pulled three papers by a computer scientist with an impressive publication record. The publisher has since informed us that it plans to pull six more, again citing duplication and manipulation of the peer-review process.

Shahaboddin Shamshirband at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s record will be down by a total of nine papers once the publisher issues the additional notices. We also found evidence that an additional paper was removed by a journal, but haven’t confirmed if that’s a retraction.

One of Shamshirband’s co-authors has objected to one of the retractions Elsevier has already issued for faked reviews, arguing the reviewers were PhD students without institutional email addresses. A spokesperson for Elsevier told us:

Continue reading Elsevier to retract six more papers by computer scientist, citing duplication and fake reviews

Computer scientist loses at least three papers, two for faked reviews

A computer scientist in Malaysia has lost two papers for faked peer reviews, and another for duplication. A fourth paper on which he is a co-author appears to have simply disappeared.

One retraction lays the blame for the fake reviewer on corresponding author Shahaboddin Shamshirband at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. According to the journal, Shamshirband — who has co-authored more than 200 papers and book chapters, despite receiving his PhD in 2014, according to his biography on Vitae — supplied a fake email for the reviewer during the submission process.

Here’s the retraction notice for that paper, issued by the journal Measurement:

Continue reading Computer scientist loses at least three papers, two for faked reviews

You’ve been dupe’d: Results so nice, they’re published twice

obesity surgeryWith retraction notices continuing to pour in, we like to occasionally take the opportunity to cover several at a time to keep up.

We’ve compiled a handful of retractions that were all issued to papers that were published twice by at least one of the same authors — known as duplication. (Sometimes, this can be the publisher’s fault, although that doesn’t appear to be the case in any of the following examples.)

So here are five recently retracted papers that were pulled because of duplication: Continue reading You’ve been dupe’d: Results so nice, they’re published twice

Researcher notches fourth retraction, has left university

Plant Ecology

A researcher with four retracted papers has left his former institution in Malaysia, according to an official at the university.

In March, we reported on the retractions of two studies in Environmental Geochemistry and Health co-authored by Muhammad Aqeel Ashraf. Both papers were pulled citing a “compromised” peer review process. The now-retracted work was carried out at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Ashraf was previously based.

However, Ashraf later moved to University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia; but now, according to an official at the institution, Ashraf is no longer based at UMS after “suspicion” arose into his work.  Continue reading Researcher notches fourth retraction, has left university