Search Results for: sting

Weekend reads: French agency’s research director sanctioned; AI data woes at MIT; is disruptive science over?

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 59,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: French agency’s research director sanctioned; AI data woes at MIT; is disruptive science over?

Can a better ID system for authors, reviewers and editors reduce fraud? STM thinks so

Unverifiable researchers are a harbinger of paper mill activity. While journals have clues to identifying fake personas — lack of professional affiliation, no profile on ORCID or strings of random numbers in email addresses, to name a few — there isn’t a standard template for doing so.  The International Association of Scientific, Technical, & Medical … Continue reading Can a better ID system for authors, reviewers and editors reduce fraud? STM thinks so

Paper with duplicated images retracted four months after concerns were raised

We write plenty of stories about lengthy investigations and long wait times for retractions. So we are always glad when we can highlight when journals act in a relatively timely fashion. The Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences, published by Wiley on behalf of Kaohsiung Hospital in Taiwan, seemed to exhibit some urgency after a sleuth raised … Continue reading Paper with duplicated images retracted four months after concerns were raised

Dozens of Elsevier papers retracted over fake companies and suspicious authorship changes

Since March of last year, Elsevier has pulled around 60 papers connected to companies in the Caucasus region that don’t seem to exist. The retraction notices attribute the decision to suspicious changes in authorship and the authors being unable to verify the existence of their employers. Online sleuths have also flagged potentially manipulated citations among … Continue reading Dozens of Elsevier papers retracted over fake companies and suspicious authorship changes

How do retractions impact researchers’ career paths and collaborations?

Several studies have tackled the issue of what effect a retracted paper has on a scientist’s reputation and publication record. The answer is, by and large, it depends: The contribution the researcher made on the paper, their career stage, the field of study and the reason for the retraction all play a role. Three researchers … Continue reading How do retractions impact researchers’ career paths and collaborations?

Web of Science delists bioengineering journal in wake of paper mill cleanup

Bioengineered has lost its spot in Clarivate’s Web of Science index, as of its April update. The journal has been working to overcome a flood of paper mill activity, but sleuths have questioned why hundreds of papers with potentially manipulated images have still not been retracted. A spokesperson for Taylor & Francis, which publishes the … Continue reading Web of Science delists bioengineering journal in wake of paper mill cleanup

Journal collected $400,000 from papers it later retracted

A Sage journal that holds the distinction of highest number of retracted articles in the Retraction Watch Database likely made in excess of $400,000 in revenue from those papers, by our calculations. We reported in April that the Journal of Intelligent and Fuzzy Systems (JIFS) had retracted 1,561 articles as part of a cleanup operation … Continue reading Journal collected $400,000 from papers it later retracted

Weekend reads: Journal halts submissions, citing NIH cuts; rejected paper published by ‘mistake’; feds cancel grant amid misconduct allegations

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 58,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: Journal halts submissions, citing NIH cuts; rejected paper published by ‘mistake’; feds cancel grant amid misconduct allegations

A Ph.D. in paper mills? 

A university and a publisher are teaming up to combat paper mills in a unique way: By enlisting a Ph.D. candidate. In April, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands announced it would be collaborating with Wiley to establish a four-year research position focused on paper mills. “Of … Continue reading A Ph.D. in paper mills? 

AI-Reddit study leader gets warning as ethics committee moves to ‘stricter review process’

The university ethics committee that reviewed a controversial study that deployed AI-generated posts on a Reddit forum made recommendations the researchers did not heed, Retraction Watch has learned.  The principal investigator on the study has received a formal warning, and the university’s ethics committees will implement a more rigorous review process for future studies, a … Continue reading AI-Reddit study leader gets warning as ethics committee moves to ‘stricter review process’