Search Results for: press release

Former rising star found guilty of misconduct issues 2nd retraction

A once-lauded researcher in the field of infectious disease — who has since been found guilty of misconduct — has retracted a second paper. Last year, the University of Dundee in Scotland investigated and ultimately concluded that Robert Ryan — whose work focused on infections that can be deadly in people with lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis … Continue reading Former rising star found guilty of misconduct issues 2nd retraction

Once-prominent researcher logs retraction following misconduct finding

A researcher who resigned from the University of Dundee in Scotland after it concluded he was guilty of misconduct has issued his first retraction. According to an internal email to staff forwarded to us last year, the university concluded that Robert Ryan had misrepresented clinical data and images in 12 different publications. The first retraction, published … Continue reading Once-prominent researcher logs retraction following misconduct finding

Multiple OMICS journals delisted from major index over concerns

SCOPUS, the publication database maintained by Elsevier, has discontinued nearly 300 journals since 2013, including multiple journals published by OMICS Publishing Group. Although the reasons the widely used database gives for discontinuing journals often vary, in all cases OMICS journals were removed over “Publication Concerns.” Here’s what SCOPUS said recently about how it vets journals:

What leads to bias in the scientific literature? New study tries to answer

By now, most of our readers are aware that some fields of science have a reproducibility problem. Part of the problem, some argue, is the publishing community’s bias toward dramatic findings — namely, studies that show something has an effect on something else are more likely to be published than studies that don’t. Many have … Continue reading What leads to bias in the scientific literature? New study tries to answer

Negligence by stressed-out postdoc led to retraction of high-profile paper, supervisor says

The timing was tight, but Sergio Gonzalez had done it. Gonzalez, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Neurosciences of Montpellier (INSERM) in France, had a paper accepted in a top journal by the end of 2015, just in time to apply for a small number of highly sought-after permanent research positions that open up in France each … Continue reading Negligence by stressed-out postdoc led to retraction of high-profile paper, supervisor says

Should software companies choose not to work with predatory publishers?

With so many journals out there, it can be hard to know which ones are legitimate, and which ones have adopted so-called “predatory” practices – publishing anything as long as authors can pay. In this guest post, computer scientist Jacob Beal at BBN Technologies highlights one way he believes software companies may indirectly endorse questionable publishers … Continue reading Should software companies choose not to work with predatory publishers?

Citation-boosting episode leads to editors’ resignations, university investigation

The fallout from an investigation into alleged citation-boosting at several journals that we first reported on two weeks ago has widened, leading to the resignation of the executive editor of one of the journals, and an investigation at a university in The Netherlands. On February 13, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) announced that an editor … Continue reading Citation-boosting episode leads to editors’ resignations, university investigation

Journals pull two papers after blogger shares plagiarism suspicions

Journals have retracted two papers after they were flagged by a pseudonymous blogger, who suspected all had copied text from other sources. What’s more, a third paper seems to have simply disappeared from the journal’s website, after the blogger, Neuroskeptic, alerted the journal to the text overlap. Neuroskeptic became suspicious about the three unrelated papers – … Continue reading Journals pull two papers after blogger shares plagiarism suspicions

Weekend reads: Misbehaving medical academics; are phase I trials ethical?; the “sin” of mistakes

The week at Retraction Watch featured revelations about what happens when researchers unwittingly use a tool without permission, and a look at why women peer review less often than men. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

What turned a cancer researcher into a literature watchdog?

Sometime in the middle of 2015, Jennifer Byrne, professor of molecular oncology at the University of Sydney, began her journey from cancer researcher to a scientific literature sleuth, seeking out potentially problematic papers. The first step was when she noticed several papers that contained a mistake in a DNA construct which, she believed, meant the … Continue reading What turned a cancer researcher into a literature watchdog?