Archives des mots-clés : Retractions of Publications

Is gold open access helpful for academic purification? A causal inference analysis based on retracted articles in biochemistry

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Authors : Er-Te Zheng, Zhichao Fang, Hui-Zhen Fu

The relationship between transparency and credibility has long been a subject of theoretical and analytical exploration within the realm of social sciences, and it has recently attracted increasing attention in the context of scientific research. Retraction serves as a pivotal mechanism in addressing concerns about research integrity.

This study aims to empirically examining the relationship between open access level and the effectiveness of current mechanism, specifically academic purification centered on retracted articles. In this study, we used matching and Difference-in-Difference (DiD) methods to examine whether gold open access is helpful for academic purification in biochemistry field.

We collected gold open access (Gold OA) and non-open access (non-OA) biochemistry retracted articles as the treatment group, and matched them with corresponding unretracted articles as the control group from 2005 to 2021 based on Web of Science and Retraction Watch database.

The results showed that compared to non-OA, Gold OA is advantageous in reducing the retraction time of flawed articles, but does not demonstrate a significant advantage in reducing citations after retraction. This indicates that Gold OA may help expedite the detection and retraction of flawed articles, ultimately promoting the practice of responsible research.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2023.103640

Characterizing the effect of retractions on scientific careers

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Authors : Shahan Ali Memon, Kinga Makovi, Bedoor AlShebli

Retracting academic papers is a fundamental tool of quality control when the validity of papers or the integrity of authors is questioned post-publication. While retractions do not completely eliminate papers from the record, they have far-reaching consequences for retracted authors and their careers, serving as a visible and permanent signal of potential transgressions.

Previous studies have highlighted the adverse effects of retractions on citation counts and co-authors’ citations; however, the underlying mechanisms driving these effects and the broader impacts beyond these traditional metrics have not been fully explored.

We address this gap leveraging Retraction Watch, the most extensive data set on retractions and link it to Microsoft Academic Graph, a comprehensive data set of scientific publications and their citation networks, and Altmetric that monitors online attention to scientific output. Our investigation focuses on: 1) the likelihood of authors exiting scientific publishing following retraction, and 2) the evolution of collaboration networks among authors who continue publishing after retraction.

Our empirical analysis reveals that retracted authors, particularly those with less experience, tend to leave scientific publishing in the aftermath of retraction, particularly if their retractions attract widespread attention.

Furthermore, we uncover a pattern whereby retracted authors who remain active in publishing tend to maintain and establish more collaborations compared to their similar non-retracted counterparts.

Taken together, notwithstanding the indispensable role of retractions in upholding the integrity of the academic community, our findings shed light on the disproportionate impact that retractions impose on early-career researchers as opposed to those with more established careers.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.06710

How do journals deal with problematic articles. Editorial response of journals to articles commented in PubPeer

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Authors : José-Luis Ortega, Lorena Delgado-Quirós

The aim of this article is to explore the editorial response of journals to research articles that may contain methodological errors or misconduct. A total of 17,244 articles commented on in PubPeer, a post-publication peer review site, were processed and classified according to several error and fraud categories.

Then, the editorial response (i.e., editorial notices) to these papers were retrieved from PubPeer, Retraction Watch, and PubMed to obtain the most comprehensive picture. The results show that only 21.5% of the articles that deserve an editorial notice (i.e., honest errors, methodological flaws, publishing fraud, manipulation) were corrected by the journal. This percentage would climb to 34% for 2019 publications.

This response is different between journals, but cross-sectional across all disciplines. Another interesting result is that high-impact journals suffer more from image manipulations, while plagiarism is more frequent in low-impact journals.

The study concludes with the observation that the journals have to improve their response to problematic articles.

URL : How do journals deal with problematic articles. Editorial response of journals to articles commented in PubPeer

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2023.ene.18

A quantitative and qualitative open citation analysis of retracted articles in the humanities

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Authors : Ivan Heibi, Silvio Peroni

In this article, we show and discuss the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of open citations to retracted publications in the humanities domain. Our study was conducted by selecting retracted papers in the humanities domain and marking their main characteristics (e.g., retraction reason).

Then, we gathered the citing entities and annotated their basic metadata (e.g., title, venue, etc.) and the characteristics of their in-text citations (e.g., intent, sentiment, etc.). Using these data, we performed a quantitative and qualitative study of retractions in the humanities, presenting descriptive statistics and a topic modeling analysis of the citing entities’ abstracts and the in-text citation contexts.

As part of our main findings, we noticed that there was no drop in the overall number of citations after the year of retraction, with few entities which have either mentioned the retraction or expressed a negative sentiment toward the cited publication.

In addition, on several occasions, we noticed a higher concern/awareness when it was about citing a retracted publication, by the citing entities belonging to the health sciences domain, if compared to the humanities and the social science domains. Philosophy, arts, and history are the humanities areas that showed the higher concerns toward the retraction.

URL : A quantitative and qualitative open citation analysis of retracted articles in the humanities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00222

Characteristics of retracted editorial articles in the biomedical literature

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Author : Bakthavachalam Elango

The main purpose of this short communication is to identify and analyze retracted editorials in the biomedical literature. Twenty-five of the 33 editorials are chosen for further analysis. All of the editorials were published as commentaries and concise reviews between 1998 and 2021.

Due to plagiarism and data-related issues, the majority of the editorial articles were retracted. Alarmingly, one-fifth of the editorials were funded by external agencies, with the USA leading the list of retracted editorials.

The average time between the publication of the editorials and their retraction is 2.48 years, and two editorials were retracted with the longest durations; both were written by the same author.

The conclusion is that, at the very least, editorial articles should be devoid of research/scientific misconduct.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04263-9

A qualitative and quantitative analysis of open citations to retracted articles: the Wakefield 1998 et al.’s case

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Authors : Ivan Heibi, Silvio Peroni

In this article, we show the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of open citations on a popular and highly cited retracted paper: “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis and pervasive developmental disorder in children” by Wakefield et al., published in 1998.

The main purpose of our study is to understand the behavior of the publications citing one retracted article and the characteristics of the citations the retracted article accumulated over time. Our analysis is based on a methodology which illustrates how we gathered the data, extracted the topics of the citing articles and visualized the results.

The data and services used are all open and free to foster the reproducibility of the analysis. The outcomes concerned the analysis of the entities citing Wakefield et al.’s article and their related in-text citations. We observed a constant increasing number of citations in the last 20 years, accompanied with a constant increment in the percentage of those acknowledging its retraction.

Citing articles have started either discussing or dealing with the retraction of Wakefield et al.’s article even before its full retraction happened in 2010. Articles in the social sciences domain citing the Wakefield et al.’s one were among those that have mostly discussed its retraction.

In addition, when observing the in-text citations, we noticed that a large number of the citations received by Wakefield et al.’s article has focused on general discussions without recalling strictly medical details, especially after the full retraction.

Medical studies did not hesitate in acknowledging the retraction of the Wakefield et al.’s article and often provided strong negative statements on it.

URL : A qualitative and quantitative analysis of open citations to retracted articles: the Wakefield 1998 et al.’s case

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-04097-5

For how long and with what relevance do genetics articles retracted due to research misconduct remain active in the scientific literature

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Authors : Rafael Dal-Ré, Carmen Ayuso

We aimed to quantify the number of pre- and post-retraction citations obtained by genetics articles retracted due to research misconduct. All retraction notices available in the Retraction Watch database for genetics articles published in 1970–2016 were assessed.

The reasons for retraction were fabrication/falsification and plagiarism. The endpoints were the number of citations of retracted articles and when and how journals reported on retractions and whether this was published on PubMed.

Four hundred and sixty retracted genetics articles were cited 34,487 times; 7,945 (23%) were post-retraction citations. Median time to retraction and time to last citation were 3.2 and 3 years, respectively. Most (96%) had a PubMed retraction notice, One percent of these were totally removed from journal websites altogether, and 4% had no information available on either the online or PDF versions.

Ninety percent of citations were from articles retracted due to falsification/fabrication. The percentage of post-retraction citations was significantly higher in the case of plagiarism (42%) than in the case of fabrication/falsification (21.5%) (p<0.001). Median time to retraction was shorter (1.3 years) in the case of plagiarism than for fabrication/falsification (4.8 years, p<0.001).

The retraction was more frequently reported in the PDFs (70%) for the fabrication/falsification cases than for the plagiarism cases (43%, p<0.001). The highest rate of retracted papers due to falsification/fabrication was among authors in the USA, and the highest rate for plagiarism was in China.

Although most retractions were appropriately handled by journals, the gravest issue was that median time to retraction for articles retracted for falsification/fabrication was nearly 5 years, earning close to 6800 post-retraction citations. Journals should implement processes to speed-up the retraction process that will help to minimize post-retraction citations.

URL : For how long and with what relevance do genetics articles retracted due to research misconduct remain active in the scientific literature

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2020.1835479