This summer, Ottawa Citizen reporter Tom Spears was sitting by a lake on vacation when he opened a spam email from a publisher. Amused to see the sender was a journal focused on bioethics, he got an idea. I thought, what if I just throw something outrageous at them? The situation should sound familiar to readers who … Continue reading Surprise! Paper retracted after author tells journal it’s a “pile of dung”
A publisher in the Netherlands has retracted 13 published studies and withdrawn 52 that were under consideration (but not yet published) after learning that someone illegally accessed its workflows to add fake authors and manipulate text. According to Seyyed Mohammad Miri, the founder, CEO, and managing director of Kowsar Publishing, the 13 retracted papers all included extra authors … Continue reading Scientific publisher hacked, affecting 65 papers
The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a physics society’s press release quoting U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, and an apparent blow for clairvoyance research. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Journals have retracted five papers by a materials researcher based in Poland after concluding the peer-review process had been faked. According to the retraction notices — which all appear in Elsevier journals and contain the same text — the papers were accepted due to “positive advice of at least one faked reviewer report,” which were submitted … Continue reading Researcher denies faking reviews for 5 newly retracted papers
A researcher is claiming that her former PhD students impersonated her to remove her name as a co-author on a 2015 study. According to an editor’s note, published in Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, the journal received confirmation from all three authors that the aforementioned researcher should be removed from the author list during … Continue reading Who wrote this chem paper? Author claims her name was removed without consent
No country is immune to misconduct — but some are being more proactive than others. China, for one, has issued a policy dubbed the “5 don’ts of academic publishing,” which appear to specifically target the ways in which researchers have subverted the peer-review process or hired outsiders to help them with their manuscripts. An announcement signed … Continue reading Ever heard of China’s “five don’ts of academic publishing?”
A cancer researcher has logged her fifth retraction following an investigation that concluded she had committed scientific misconduct. We’ve previously reported on four retractions of papers by Stephanie Watkins, a researcher at Loyola Medicine. The previously issued notices — in The Journal of Clinical Investigation and Cancer Research — note that an investigation committee appointed by … Continue reading Cancer researcher earns 5th retraction after misconduct finding
The week at Retraction Watch featured doubts about the effects of oxytocin, aka the “love hormone,” and a report on how common reference errors are. Here’s what was happening elsewhere, with apologies for the later-than-usual posting:
We spoke with Matt Hodgkinson about how he turned his “spidey sense” for what’s wrong with papers into a new position at Hindawi, one of the largest publishers of open-access journals. Retraction Watch: As the new Head of Research Integrity at Hindawi, what does your position entail? What does your typical day look like?
The week at Retraction Watch featured a look at where retractions for fake peer review come from, and an eyebrow-raising plan that has a journal charging would-be whistleblowers a fee. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: