studies about retractions – Page 7

Weekend reads: Self-plagiarism and moral panic; sexism in science; peer review under scrutiny

Another busy week at Retraction Watch, which kicked off with our announcement that we’re hiring a paid intern. Here’s what was happening elsewhere around the web: Continue reading Weekend reads: Self-plagiarism and moral panic; sexism in science; peer review under scrutiny

Weekend reads: How to rescue science, what “censorship” really means, worst paper of the year?

Another very busy week at Retraction Watch. There were a lot of gems elsewhere. Here’s a sampling: Continue reading Weekend reads: How to rescue science, what “censorship” really means, worst paper of the year?

How common is scientific misconduct in Nigeria?

We’ve only covered one retraction from Nigeria. But as we’ve often noted, retraction rates don’t necessarily correlate with rates of problematic research, so the low number doesn’t really answer the question in this post’s title.

Lucky for us, a group of authors have started publishing surveys of Nigerian scientists on the subject. In a new such survey published in BMC Medical Ethics, Patrick I. Okonta and Theresa Rossouw asked 150 researchers to fill out a questionnaire during a scientific conference in 2010. Most of them — 133 — complied. Their findings? Continue reading How common is scientific misconduct in Nigeria?

Weekend reads: Problems with a Science paper, how to cite properly (and improperly)

Another super-busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s what was happening in around the web in scientific publishing, misconduct, and related issues: Continue reading Weekend reads: Problems with a Science paper, how to cite properly (and improperly)

Weekend reads: Former ORI director speaks out; Is peer review broken?

Another busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s what was happening elsewhere on the web in scientific publishing and related issues: Continue reading Weekend reads: Former ORI director speaks out; Is peer review broken?

Does publicly questioning papers lead to more corrections and retractions?

As Retraction Watch readers will likely recall, Paul Brookes ran Science-Fraud.org anonymously until early 2013, when he was outed and faced legal threats that forced him to shut down the site. There are a lot of lessons to be drawn from the experience, some of which Brookes discussed with Science last month.

Today, PeerJ published Brookes’ analysis of the response to critiques on Science-Fraud.org. It’s a compelling examination that suggests public scrutiny of the kind found on the site — often harsh, but always based solidly on evidence — is linked to more corrections and retractions in the literature.

Brookes looked at

497 papers for which data integrity had been questioned either in public or in private. As such, the papers were divided into two sub-sets: a public set of 274 papers discussed online, and the remainder a private set of 223 papers not publicized.

His results?

Continue reading Does publicly questioning papers lead to more corrections and retractions?

Some authors seem to cite their own retracted studies. Should we be concerned?

Some authors of retracted studies persist in citing their retracted work, according to a new study in Science and Engineering Ethics that calls the trend “very concerning.”