A public-health journal has retracted a study from Ethiopia that made unlicensed use of a questionnaire developed by a U.S. researcher known to aggressively protect his intellectual property.
This time, he didn’t have to: The journal’s publisher flagged the copyright infringement itself, Renee Hoch, managing editor at PLOS Publication Ethics, told Retraction Watch:
Continue reading Journal pulls paper from Ethiopia for unlicensed use of questionnaire
In March 2020, a group of biologists published a paper on the website of an open access journal.
Nearly three years later, the publisher, Wiley, withdrew the article because, according to the withdrawal notice, the authors were “unable to finalize” payment of the fee to publish the version of record, known as the Article Publication Charge or APC.
The manuscript, “Eco-evolutionary factors that influence its demographic oscillations in Prochilodus costatus (Actinopterygii: Characiformes) populations evidenced through a genetic spatial–temporal evaluation,” had appeared on the site of the journal Evolutionary Applications “as an Accepted Article,” according to the notice, but the full text is no longer available online. It had not been indexed in Clarivate’s Web of Science before being withdrawn on February 27.
The notice stated that the article
Continue reading Article retracted when authors don’t pay publication fee
Oops.
A plant journal recently retracted a 2017 paper, saying the authors couldn’t pay the page charges ($110/page). The notice has since disappeared, and the journal announced on Twitter Thursday it was issued in error. The paper is now intact on the journal’s site.
This isn’t the first time the journal has withdrawn a statement that authors couldn’t pay the page charges — we’ve discovered the journal removed a line to that effect from a 2015 retraction notice (although in that case, it left the retraction intact). Page charges, often required by traditional publishers, typically cover printing costs; they differ from article processing charges (APCs) levied by open-access journals, which cover the cost of publishing the paper and making it freely available.
We’ve contacted editors at the journal and its publisher, Taylor & Francis, to try to find out why there are mixed messages about author page charges. A spokesperson for the publisher said it was unable to respond before deadline, but it was looking into the matter:
I can confirm that we are committed to following [Committee on Publication Ethics] guidelines and that we are taking this issue seriously.
In the meantime, here’s what we know.
A paper on chicory plants — also known as “blue daisies” — won’t get its moment in the sun.
The “accepted author version” was published online in June, in Plant Signaling & Behavior. But before the so-called “version of record” could make it into an official issue of the journal — which is online-only — it was retracted.
Why? The authors apparently couldn’t pay the fees required to publish the paper. Here’s the short note, which is titled “Editorial Retraction:” Continue reading Plant paper pulled when authors can’t pay fees
Dental Materials Journal has retracted three papers by different groups of authors for “violation of our publishing policies and procedures” — which turns out to be a polite way of saying “they wouldn’t pay our fees.”
The articles are: Continue reading A first? Dental journal retracts three papers because authors didn’t pay publication charges