A researcher who sued the publisher PLOS to prevent it from posting an expression of concern for one of her papers has dropped her suit, and the publisher tells us it will add a correction to the article instead – but may “revisit this case” to deal with “unresolved issues.” We’ve previously reported on the … Continue reading PLOS backs down from expression of concern after author’s lawsuit
At the beginning of February 2023, I discovered that the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems (SJIS) had been hijacked. As editor-in-chief of the publication, I had been contacted by an author confused by receiving both an acceptance letter and a desk rejection for her manuscript. I had rejected the paper because it did not align … Continue reading My journal was hijacked: an editor’s experience
When I began my graduate work almost 15 years ago, retractions of papers in academic journals were rare, reserved mainly for clear misconduct or serious errors. Today, rarity has given way to routine, with retractions coming more often and increasingly in bulk. Sage is not immune to large-scale retractions, nor are we passive observers of … Continue reading Guest post: A look behind the scenes of bulk retractions from Sage
We are pleased to present an excerpt from Thinking About Science: Good Science, Bad Science, and How to Make It Better by Ferric C. Fang and Arturo Casadevall, published by ASM Press/Wiley, October 2023. Amidst the COVID-19 calamity, one can argue that science is one of the few aspects of the human response that has … Continue reading Research integrity during the COVID-19 pandemic: A book excerpt
A controversial paper on the safety and immunogenicity of an Iran-made COVID-19 vaccine is being investigated by the U.S.-based publisher Wiley, Retraction Watch has learned. Iran reportedly has already administered 3 million doses of the vaccine, dubbed Noora, which the country licensed for emergency use last year. The paper describes the vaccine’s first test in … Continue reading Publisher looking into COVID vaccine paper with ‘serious flaws’
An article that proposed potential benefits of private equity firms investing in autism service providers has been removed from the journal in which it was published. The article, “Private equity investment: Friend or foe to applied behavior analysis?” was originally published in the International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education as part of a January 2023 special issue devoted to … Continue reading Article defending private-equity involvement in autism services retracted
A professor of interventional radiology in France pointed the finger at an alleged ghostwriter after he was caught plagiarizing large portions of text in a review article, Retraction Watch has learned. “After careful checking, I noticed that I am not the author of this paper despite my first authorship since it has been written by … Continue reading Exclusive: Professor in France blames alleged ghostwriter for plagiarism
In February, David Allison came across a study with a familiar problem. The authors of the study purported to show an educational program helped women lose weight, but they had not directly compared the treatment and control groups. Instead, they’d used a statistically invalid method to compare changes within the groups. Allison, the dean at … Continue reading ‘Prompt and decisive’: Editor says obesity study will be retracted after critique
In 2022, Guillaume Cabanac noticed something unusual: a study had attracted more than 100 citations in a short span of less than two months of being published. Cabanac, a computer scientist at the University of Toulouse in France, initially flagged the study on PubPeer after it was highlighted by the Problematic Paper Screener, which automatically … Continue reading How thousands of invisible citations sneak into papers and make for fake metrics
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to well over 350. There are more than 43,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over … Continue reading Weekend reads: The strain on publishing; Gino defends herself; the rise of fake peer review retractions