Weekend reads: ‘Published crap;’ randomized grant awards; ‘Problems in Science Publishing’

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 213. There are now more than 32,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: ‘Published crap;’ randomized grant awards; ‘Problems in Science Publishing’

A U.S. federal science watchdog made just three findings of misconduct in 2021. We asked them why.

Retraction Watch readers are likely familiar with the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI), the agency that oversees institutional investigations into misconduct in research funded by the NIH, as well as focusing on education programs.

Earlier this month, ORI released data on its case closures dating back to 2006. We’ve charted those data in the graphics below. In 2021, ORI made just 3 findings of misconduct, a drop from 10 — roughly the average over the past 15 years — in 2020. Such cases can take years.

As the first chart makes clear, a similar dip in ORI findings of misconduct occurred in 2016. That was then-director Kathy Partin’s first year in the role, and a time of some turmoil at the agency. In an interview with us then, Partin referred multiple times to the agency being short-staffed. Partin was removed from the post in 2017 and became intramural research integrity officer at the NIH in 2018.

ORI — as has often been the case over the past two decades — is once again without a permanent director. The most recent permanent director, Elisabeth (Lis) Handley, became Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health in July 2021.

We asked ORI to explain what’s behind the figures. A spokesperson responded on their behalf.

Continue reading A U.S. federal science watchdog made just three findings of misconduct in 2021. We asked them why.

Authors whose Springer Nature book was retracted for plagiarism solicit chapters for another

Photo by Bilal Kamoon via flickr

If you had a book retracted for plagiarism, would you submit a book proposal to the same publisher? And if you were that publisher, would you entertain said pitch?

These, dear reader, are not idle questions.

Continue reading Authors whose Springer Nature book was retracted for plagiarism solicit chapters for another

Publisher retracts 350 papers at once

IOP Publishing has retracted a total of 350 papers from two different 2021 conference proceedings because an “investigation has uncovered evidence of systematic manipulation of the publication process and considerable citation manipulation.”

The case is just the latest involving the discovery of papers full of gibberish – aka “tortured phrases” – thanks to the work of Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist at the University of Toulouse, Cyril Labbé, of University Grenoble-Alpes and Alexander Magazinov, of Skoltech, in Moscow. The tool detects papers that contain phrases that appear to have been translated from English into another language, and then back into English, likely with the involvement of paper-generating software.

The papers were in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series (232 articles), and IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (118 articles), plus four editorials.

According to IOP’s Rachael Harper, head of marketing communications, 20 of the papers were listed in the Problematic Paper Screener: 

Continue reading Publisher retracts 350 papers at once

Which takes longer to produce: An infant who can sit on his own, or a retraction?

Joe Hilgard (and his son)

Joe Hilgard’s son wasn’t even a twinkle in his father’s sharp eye for bad data when an Elsevier journal notified the social psychologist that it intended to retract a 2015 article he’d flagged on the link between exposure to violent media and aggression in adolescents. 

Well, the journal has finally retracted the paper – but not before Hilgard’s son was born and started speaking (more on that in a moment). 

Hilgard’s ability to spot bad data, and his tenacity at holding journals accountable for their publications, has now led to five retractions. Four of those papers belong to a researcher in China named Qian Zhang, of Southwest University in Chongqin. As readers of this blog might recall, Zhang lost a pair of papers in 2019 after Hilgard and others raised questions about the integrity of the data. 

As Hilgard, who also notified Southwest University about his findings, told us back in 2019 about Zhang’s previously retracted papers: 

Continue reading Which takes longer to produce: An infant who can sit on his own, or a retraction?

Journal retracts a paper it published with a missing table after author fails to provide it

Mark Oniffrey, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Can you retract something that never existed in the first place? At least one journal thinks the answer to that conundrum is yes. 

That journal would be Medicine. In September 2020, the Wolters Kluwer journal published a paper titled “Tranexamic acid reduces blood cost in long-segment spinal fusion surgery: A randomized controlled study protocol” by a group in China led by Linyu Yang, of the Department of Orthopedics at the Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, in Sichuan. 

The article promised – but failed to deliver – a “Table 1”, an omission the peer reviewers and journal staff missed during the production process. Five months later, said table still had not materialized, prompting the following notice: 

Continue reading Journal retracts a paper it published with a missing table after author fails to provide it

How to find evidence of paper mills using peer review comments

Adam Day

Finding papers produced by paper mills has become a major headache for many of the world’s largest publishers over the past year, and they’re largely playing catch-up since sleuths began identifying them a few years ago. But there may be a new way: Earlier this month, Adam Day, a data scientist at SAGE Publishing, posted a preprint on arXiv that used a variety of methods to search for duplication in peer review comments, based on the likelihood that paper mills “create fake referee accounts and use them to submit fake peer-review reports.” We asked Day several questions about the approach.

Retraction Watch (RW): Tell us a bit about the methods you used.

Continue reading How to find evidence of paper mills using peer review comments

Weekend reads: Paying for publication?; deeper looks at citation practices; preprints and retractions

Would you consider a donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 211. There are now more than 32,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, LibKey, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

Continue reading Weekend reads: Paying for publication?; deeper looks at citation practices; preprints and retractions

‘I needed a publication in order to submit my thesis’: Author admits to stealing a manuscript

Ingeborg Olsdatter Busterud Flagstad

Svein Åge K. Johnsen and Ingeborg Olsdatter Busterud Flagstad, of the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, have been trying to publish a manuscript on the psychology of green entrepreneurship.

In January 2021, they submitted it to the International Small Business Journal, a SAGE publication. The editors rejected it without sending it to peer review. So did The Journal of Entrepreneurship, another SAGE title. So Johnsen and Flagstad submitted it to Cogent Business & Management, a Taylor & Francis title.

And then, on December 25, as perhaps the worst Christmas present ever, they saw the paper published – by someone else.

Continue reading ‘I needed a publication in order to submit my thesis’: Author admits to stealing a manuscript

Science issues expression of concern nine months after one of its reporters uncovers potential misconduct

Danielle Dixson

Science has issued an expression of concern for a 2014 paper on the harmful effects of ocean acidification on fish and coral after the first author of the article was accused of fabricating data in the study and other research.

The article, “Chemically mediated behavior of recruiting corals and fishes: A tipping point that may limit reef recovery,” was written by a group at Georgia Institute of Technology led by Danielle Dixson, then a post-doc at the university. Dixson has since moved to the University of Delaware, Lewes, where she runs her own lab studying corals. 

The work – cited 171 times so far, according to Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science – received immediate challenge from other researchers, who questioned the validity of the findings. 

Continue reading Science issues expression of concern nine months after one of its reporters uncovers potential misconduct