A Cross Sectional Study of Retraction Notices of Scholarly Journals of Science

DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, Vol. 39, No. 2, March 2019, pp. 74-81, DOI : 10.14429/djlit.39.2.14000 2019, DESIDOC A Cross Sectional Study of Retraction Notices of Scholarly Journals of Science Manorama Tripathi#,*, Sharad Kumar Sonkar$, and Sunil Kumar^ #Dr B R Ambedkar Central Library, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi - 110 067, India $Department of Library and Information Science, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow - 226 025, India ^Planning & Development Division, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi - 110 068, India *E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT Retraction is the withdrawal of published article after it is found that the authors did not ensure integrity in conducting and reporting their research activities. The bibliometric information of 4716 document categorised as retractions in Science Citation Index, Web of Science was downloaded and analysed to understand trend, pattern and reasons of retraction. The results showed that retractions had increased during the ten-year period, 2008-2017. The main reasons for retractions were plagiarism, falsified data, manipulation of images and figures. It was also found that just 40 out of 4716 retraction notices had explicitly stated reasons for retracting the published articles. The open access journals had more number of retractions as compared to subscription based journals. The study will guide library professionals and research scholars towards a better comprehension of the reasons behind retractions in science discipline in the ten-year period. They would be better equipped to steer clear of inauthentic publications in their citations and references. Keywords: Retraction; Misconduct; Scholarly journal 1. INTRODUCTION substantial overlap, use of falsified or fabricated data, adoption The scholarly journals are prime channels of extensive of unethical norms or procedures during research activities or communication of research findings to the world. The experiments, partial or complete manipulation of figures and credibility of journals is calibrated in terms of the quality of images, or non-replication of reported research. Recently, it has their publications and genuineness of published research. The been observed that retractions occur because of compromised scholarly journals established as core and coveted in specific peer reviews. areas of research are highly selective in publishing articles to Fanelli1 and Cokol2, et al. noted a sharp rise in retraction maintain a high standard. The submitted manuscripts undergo rate in recent years. Therefore, it is the necessity of the time rigorous peer review for quality check and to ensure standards, to sensitise researchers, academics and library professional on values and ethics of research. This leads to a high rate of the issue of retraction. This paper explains trends in retraction rejection of papers submitted for consideration for publication. in science discipline by using qualitative and quantitative Still, some flawed research may successfully cross review approaches. The study has analysed the retraction notices of 4716 stage and get published. Even after the release of false articles, retracted articles published in research journals and indexed whenever publishers and scholars note something amiss with under “retracted publications” category in Web of Science the methodology and findings in published works; or when it (WoS). Retraction in Specific areas of research in Science such is learnt that the authors did not follow the accepted norms and as health, medicine, biochemistry, and environmental science procedures of conducting and reporting research, they decide are highly crucial for the survival of human and ecology of the to withdraw the published articles. This is done to maintain the globe, as minor lapses or misconduct in research in these areas integrity, credibility and quality of the published literature. The will have severe implications for humanity. There is persistent mechanism of withdrawal of a published article is known as the need of close monitoring of research lapse and malpractices retraction. It is initiated by the journal to widely disseminate in science disciplines. This factor encouraged researchers and publicise that the published article has been withdrawn and to review retractions in the science discipline. This study findings of the retracted paper are null and void, no longer valid analysed retraction details indexed in Web of Science hence to be referred and cited. The retractions take place because this study is unique in its coverage from earlier published of a range of reasons including redundant, dual publication, work on retraction in science discipline. This study will help researchers in understanding the reasons for retraction. The Received : 29 December 2018, Revised : 04 February 2019 paper is equally helpful for academics, research scholars and Accepted : 05 February 2019, Online published : 11 March 2019 library professionals. 74 TriPatHI, et al.: A Cross Sectional STUDY of Retraction Notices of SCHolarlY JOUrnals of Science 2. LITERATURE REVIEW of retractions in the peer-reviewed journals of Economics Science and research are not only about seeking and and noted that the journals do not issue clear retraction establishing truth and knowledge, but It involves all the traits of notices explaining reasons of retraction, hence editors fail to human behaviour, from earnest desire to explore new and more take concrete steps to prevent malpractices in future by not to vulnerability to misconduct and envy. This human behavior mentioning reasons of retractions in notices. Research has also makes the researchers falter and indulge in misconduct. This shown that most of the misconduct cases remain hidden and misconduct culminates in retractions of published literature. are not discovered and reported10. The growing number of retractions3 in recent years indicates that the researchers have become more aware and 3. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY vigilant in identifying and reporting fraudulent research works. The objectives of the study are as follows. Grieneisen and Zhang4 have said that the retractions occur • To highlight the number of retractions in science in 10- across all the disciplines. Their study further noted that authors year period (2008-17) whose articles are retracted end up attracting less visibility • To highlight time gap between publication and their and citation for their prior publications; thus retraction of retraction published works minimises the scholarly damage, but also • To understand pattern of authorship of retracted articles affects research credibility of authors. Azoulay5, et al. have • To identify reasons of retractions reported that faculty members experience a drop of 10 per cent • To understand difference in trends of retraction in in citations to their previous unretracted articles. This study commercial and open access journals. also highlighted that the senior, reputed scientists witnessed more criticism and penalty than junior scientists when they got 3.1 Null Hypothesis their articles retracted because of misconduct. However, when H01: There is no association in number of retraction occurs due to some honest error both the senior and retracted articles in a journal with its Impact Factor junior faculty members and scientists face criticism equally. H02: Open access and fee based publications don’t differ The researchers whose articles are retracted experience 91.8 on volume of retraction. per cent decrease in publication output; and don’t get grants to conduct their research in future6. Wang7 examined the 4. METHOD OF STUDY EMBASE, and MEDLINE databases along with independent The study adopted blend of qualitative and quantitative websites of Neurological journals for understanding phenomena research methodologies. The analysis is based on secondary of retraction of articles, published in 1995 to 2016 and noted data obtained from the Web of Science. Researchers applied that common reasons of retraction were duplicate publications, following steps for extracting data for the study: plagiarism, use of fraudulent data, scientific errors, lack of In the Basic Search interface of WoS, ‘2008-2017’ was acknowledgement of authors and compromised peer review. entered in ‘year published’ option. In the setting, ‘Science Al-Gharreb8, et al. have reported that the retracted articles in Citation Expanded Index’ was chosen. Nursing and Midwifery have received 7 to 52 citations, which As a result, of the above query, a list of 1,71,53,125 record is unsafe for human in clinical like sensitive discipline; though was obtained. The results mentioned were further filtered by the rate of retraction is low in this field as compared to other type of documents – “Retraction and Retracted documents” subjects. Cox9, et al. have analysed the frequency and nature which resulted in 4,716 records. The results were downloaded Table 1. Trend in retraction of articles in science discipline Growth rate in numbers Year of Total Papers Retracted papers Number of retraction Absolute of retractions per lakh publication (in SCI) per one lakh* paper growth rate Number Percent papers 2008 14,15,686 280 5.9 19.8 2009 14,89,724 318 6.7 21.3 13.6 7.6 2010 15,28,677 349 7.4 22.8 9.7 7.0 2011 16,03,653 284 6.0 17.7 -18.6 -22.4 2012 16,84,237 362 7.7 21.5 27.5 21.5 2013 17,81,542 337 7.1 18.9 -6.9 -12.1 2014 18,30,229 413 8.8 22.6 22.6 19.6 2015 18,80,301 436 9.2 23.2 5.6 2.7 2016 19,56,001 958 20.3 49.0 119.7 111.2 2017 19,83,085 979 20.8 49.4 2.2 0.8 Total 1,71,53,125 4,716 *10 lakh = one million 75 DJLIT, Vol. 39, NO. 2, MarcH 2019 in a batch of 500 record, as only a maximum of 500 record available on the publishers’ websites either instantly or after can be downloaded at a time from Web of Science, and an embargo period, but these articles are not accompanied by saved as Excel files for further evaluation and analysis. The a formal legal license, The non-availability of a legal license downloaded data were analysed on following parameters.

Load more