The week at Retraction Watch featured a lawsuit threat following criticism of a popular education program, and the new editor of PLOS ONE’s explanation of why submissions are down. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
The week at Retraction Watch featured more fallout from a citation-boosting episode, and a look at when animal research becomes unnecessary and cruel. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Expressions of concern, as regular Retraction Watch readers will know, are rare but important signals in the scientific record. Neither retractions nor corrections, they alert readers that there may be an issue with a paper, but that the full story is not yet clear. But what ultimately happens to papers flagged by these editorial notices? … Continue reading Stuck in limbo: What happens to papers flagged by journals as potentially problematic?
The week at Retraction Watch featured a frank admission of error by a Nobel Prize winner, and a look at five “diseases” plaguing science. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A researcher in Greece has issued extensive — what we sometimes call “mega” — corrections to two 2016 papers published in a medical journal in Romania. The first author — Alexandra Kalogeraki, a pathology researcher at the University of Crete in Greece — retracted two reviews from the same journal last year for plagiarism. The newest notices … Continue reading Researcher issues massive changes to papers amidst plagiarism investigation
The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a psychology paper because of manipulation by an unnamed graduate student, and a tale about the cost of being a whistleblower, even when you’re successful. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
It’s been a long and winding road for a whistleblower at Indiana University, South Bend. After Mark Fox, a professor of management and entrepreneurship accused two business professors of plagiarism in 2012, a university investigation found one of the two men — Douglas Agbetsiafa, the former chair of the economics department — guilty of plagiarism, and … Continue reading Whistleblower gets court backing in defamation case — but at a cost
An erratum for a book chapter about water pollution has removed two out of the three original authors. What’s more, the notice specifies that “any mistakes or omissions are the sole responsibility” of the remaining author, Michael Yodzis of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. This isn’t something we see every day, but one … Continue reading How did a book chapter end up with two authors who didn’t contribute to it?
Scientists are always pressed for time; still, Raphael Didham of the University Western Australia was surprised when he fell upon a group of early career scientists using a spreadsheet formula to calculate whether one was obligated to accept an invitation to review a paper, based on how many manuscripts he’d submitted for review. “I recall … Continue reading Do you calculate if you should accept an invite to peer review? Please stop, say journal editors
Sometimes, a seemingly run-of-the-mill retraction notice turns out to be much less straightforward. Such was the case with a recent retraction of a 2016 paper in a journal published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, apparently over permission to use an evaluation scale designed to test whether patients take their medications as … Continue reading If you use this research tool without permission, you’ll hear about it