One of the most highly cited authors in engineering has continued publishing after his death more than a year ago. Jiří Jaromír Klemeš, a researcher at the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic and a top editor at an Elsevier journal that has come under fire for author self-citation, is listed as a … Continue reading Highly cited scientist published dozens of papers after his death
Erick Jones, the dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Nevada in Reno, is under fire for publishing a journal filled with what one academic called “bizarre” and “incoherent” articles. Jones founded the International Supply Chain Technology Journal in 2015 and served as the publication’s editor-in-chief until September 2022, when he handed … Continue reading Engineering dean’s journal serves as a supply chain for ‘bizarre’ articles
Last year, a new study on green innovations and patents in 27 countries left one reader slack-jawed. The findings were no surprise. What was baffling was how the authors, two professors of economics in Europe, had pulled off the research in the first place. The reader, a PhD student in economics, was working with the … Continue reading No data? No problem! Undisclosed tinkering in Excel behind economics paper
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 The week at Retraction Watch featured: Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to nearly 400. There are more than 46,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains well over 200 titles. And … Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘Unethical studies on China minority groups;’ an editorial board signs off; the sleuth who uncovered Dana Farber paper problems
Last spring, the Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science published a provocative paper stating that left-handed mothers in Singapore treat their LGBTQ+ children better than do right-handed moms. Except the paper, “Left-Handed Mothers and LGBTQ+ Child Acceptance in Singapore: Exploring the Link through Early Life Rejection,” was fake, a sting, designed to cast shade … Continue reading The Singapore Sting: Why an activist published a fake paper on ‘LGBTQ+ child acceptance’
Neri Oxman’s problems may be getting worse. The researcher, who has become embroiled in plagiarism accusations following her billionaire husband’s push to depose the president of Harvard for plagiarizing in her thesis, appears to have lifted about 100 words in her thesis from an article that has been plagiarized before. Last week, Business Insider reported … Continue reading Neri Oxman accused of lifting from article whose plagiarism led to downfall of concussion expert
When Jure Mur, a postdoc at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, realized the replication of a published study he was working on as a “sanity check” wasn’t producing matching results, his first reaction was “annoyance,” he said. He assumed the mistake was his own, and he’d have to thoroughly check his work to find … Continue reading ‘We should have followed up’: Lancet journal retracts article on hearing aids and dementia after prodding
A journal says a content management mishap led to the publication, and subsequent retraction, of a gag essay not intended for wide distribution. Why the retraction happened three and a half years after the paper’s publication remains murky. This story belongs to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, back when Proteins: Structure, Function, and … Continue reading Publisher error claims joke paper, April Fools’ tradition – three years later
A U.S. federal agency that oversees research misconduct investigations and issues sanctions appears to be doling out punishments fairly, according to researchers who analyzed summaries of the agency’s cases from the last three decades. But the authors of the study also found more than 30 papers the ORI said should be retracted have yet to … Continue reading What analyzing 30 years of US federal research misconduct sanctions revealed
Over the past year, amid announcements of thousands of retractions, journal closures and a major index delisting several titles, executives at the troubled publisher Hindawi have at various times mentioned a “new retraction process” for investigating and pulling papers “at scale.” The publisher has declined to provide details – until now. So far in 2023, … Continue reading Hindawi reveals process for retracting more than 8,000 paper mill articles