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:
Anna Abalkina noticed something odd about a psychology paper on the “modern problems of youth extremism”: The corresponding author was affiliated with a university in Russia, but his email address had a domain name from India. The unusual domain name was part of a pattern Abalkina, of the Freie Universität Berlin, noticed in hundreds of … Continue reading How fishy email addresses tipped off a sleuth to a paper mill
After months of investigation that identified networks of reviewers and editors manipulating the peer review process, Hindawi plans to retract 511 papers across 16 journals, Retraction Watch has learned. The retractions, which the publisher and its parent company, Wiley, will announce tomorrow in a blog post, will be issued in the next month, and more … Continue reading Exclusive: Hindawi and Wiley to retract over 500 papers linked to peer review rings
A civil engineering researcher will soon have 12 retractions to his name after a data sleuth notified journals of issues with image reuse in the papers. Jorge de Brito, a professor at the University of Lisbon, has lost four papers in Construction and Building Materials, two in the Journal of Building Engineering, of which he … Continue reading Engineering researcher who cast blame on co-author will soon have 12 retractions
Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance. The week at Retraction Watch featured: Want to know whether that journal is scamming you? Introducing the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker Cornell food marketing researcher who retired after misconduct finding is publishing again Urology researcher under investigation for double-dipping has … Continue reading Weekend reads: Researcher has paper retracted, then earns promotion; is peer review ‘more cavalier, self-serving, and ignorant?’; a ‘weird notice’ for all a publisher’s papers
Perhaps the Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing needs to look for a different kind of smarts. The journal – a Springer Nature title – has just retracted 51 papers. The episode is the latest in a string of high-volume retractions by major publishers of papers included in special issues. In at least five … Continue reading Journal about ‘ambient intelligence’ retracts more than 50 papers at once
“The retraction that took years” is a common enough refrain on Retraction Watch that it might as be its own genre. Here’s one that didn’t. A journal wasted no time pouncing on a suspect paper, retracting the 2016 article just three days after a commenter flagged concerns about the images in the work on PubPeer. … Continue reading Often, retractions take years. This one took three days.
A Springer Nature journal has retracted a paper sourced from a paper mill – not an uncommon occurrence nowadays. What adds a bit of intrigue is that the manuscript was submitted with a fake email address to keep the alleged corresponding author from knowing about it. The paper, “Electrophysiological Follow-Up of Patients with Chronic Peripheral … Continue reading Researcher uses fake email address to submit a paper mill manuscript without corresponding author’s knowledge
The Anatomical Record is correcting itself in a big way, pulling 13 articles, including several linked to paper mills. The papers, all by authors in China, were published between 2019 and 2021. Some were flagged in a September 2021 report on research misconduct by the Chinese government. They join a slew of articles The Anatomical … Continue reading Anatomy journal retracts 13 papers
Although it’s never too late to say sorry, sometimes the apology turns out to be worse than keeping quiet. Consider the case of a group in China, who admitted that their 2020 paper on brain tumors was the work of a paper mill. The article, “LncRNA SNHG16 Promotes Proliferation, Migration, and Invasion of Glioma Cells … Continue reading Here’s what happened when a publisher looked more closely at a paper milled paper