The week at Retraction Watch featured a look at how long journals take to respond to retraction requests, and news of a $10 million settlement for research misconduct allegations. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Springer is retracting 107 papers from one journal after discovering they had been accepted with fake peer reviews. Yes, 107. To submit a fake review, someone (often the author of a paper) either makes up an outside expert to review the paper, or suggests a real researcher — and in both cases, provides a fake … Continue reading A new record: Major publisher retracting more than 100 studies from cancer journal over fake peer reviews
In February, Lusine Abrahamyan, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, was contacted by ResearchGate. Her name was listed on a 2016 paper in a heart journal, the site told her — was Abrahamyan indeed a co-author? Um, no, she was not. In fact, before that moment, she didn’t know such a paper existed. It turns out, Abrahamyan had supervised … Continue reading Busted: Researcher used fake contact info for co-authors
A researcher in South Korea has retracted a 2016 paper on which he is listed as senior author because a former student wrote and published the article without his permission. According to the retraction notice, the former student also fabricated data and plagiarized “a substantial amount of material” from previous papers published by the senior and … Continue reading Faked data, plagiarism, no co-author okays…yeah, this paper’s been retracted
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 … Continue reading Elsevier to retract six more papers by computer scientist, citing duplication and fake 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 … Continue reading Computer scientist loses at least three papers, two for faked reviews
While we are often among the first to chuckle at a good sting of a predatory publisher, there have probably been enough of them by now to have made the point. And even Ottawa Citizen reporter Tom Spears — whose stings have been among the most hilarious — seems to agree. He didn’t want to … Continue reading For this fake editorial, “merit of artistic writing” was enough for publication
The final week of 2016 at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a high-profile paper on diabetes from Harvard, and the retraction of a JAMA article on whether zinc was useful for the common cold. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Recently, the editors of a journal about management science received a submission from a prominent Dutch economist. But something didn’t feel right about it. For one, the author submitted the paper using a Yahoo email address. So the editors contacted the author via his institutional email; immediately, the researcher denied having submitted the paper — … Continue reading A new way to fake authorship: Submit under a prominent name, then say it was a mistake
The week at Retraction Watch featured the story of a graduate student who fought back after being caught in the middle of a fraud case, and the retraction of a hotly debated paper from Nature Cell Biology. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: