Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Tabl e 8. 11 Major aspects of retraction
Attributes of retraction
Findings and references
Time to retraction
(months)
28 months (mean) (Budd et al. 1998 ); Fraudulent - 28.41 months
(mean), Erroneous - 22.72 months (mean) (Steen 2011 ); 28
months (median), Senior researchers implicated - 79 months,
junior researcher implicated - 22 months (Trikalinos et al.
2008 ); case study (Korpela 2010 )
Post-retraction citations
(lag time)
1 year after retraction (Budd et al. 1998 ); 3 years after (Neale et al.
2007 ); next calendar year (Pfeifer and Snodgrass 1990 )
Cause of concern
Irreproducibility, unusually high-level of productivity (Budd et al.
1998 ; Steen 2011 )
Reasons for retraction
Scientific misconduct, irreproducibility, errors (Wager and
Williams 2011 )
Types of errors
Errors in method, data or sample; duplicated publication; text
plagiarism (Budd et al. 1998 )
Types of misconduct
Identified or presumed; fraud, fabrication, falsification, data
plagiarism (Budd et al. 1998 ;Nealeetal. 2007 ; Steen 2011 )
Deliberate or accidental
A higher rate of repeat offenders found in fraudulent papers than
erroneous papers (Steen 2011 )
Sources of the literature
PubMed/MEDLINE (Budd et al. 1998 ;Nealeetal. 2007 ; Steen
2011 )
misconduct. It has been argued that, pragmatically speaking, fabricating data and
results is perceived to be much more harmful than plagiarizing a description or an
expression. For example, some researchers distinguish data plagiarism from text
plagiarism and retreat data plagiarism as a scientific misconduct (Steen 2011 ).
A sign that may differentiate a deliberate fraudulent behavior from a good faith
mistake is whether it happens repeatedly with the same researcher. A higher rate
of repeat offenders was indeed found in fraudulent papers than erroneous papers
(Steen 2011 ).
Studies of retraction almost exclusively focused on the literature of medicine,
where the stake is high in terms of the safety of patients. PubMed and the Web
of Science are the major resources used in these studies. Analysts in these studies
typically searched for retracted articles and analyzed the content of retraction
notices as well as other types of information. Most of these studies appear to rely
on labor-intensive procedures with limited or no support for visual analytic tasks.
Several potentially important questions have not been adequately addressed due to
such constraints.
8.3.1.1
k-Degree Post-retraction Citation Paths
An article may cite a retracted article without realizing the corresponding retraction.
This type of citing articles may infect the integrity of the scientific literature. Studies
of retraction so far essentially focused on first-degree citing articles, i.e. articles that
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search