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A Novel Rubric for Rating the Quality of Retraction Notices

Author

Listed:
  • Emma Bilbrey

    (School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt, C-1320 Medical Center North, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Natalie O'Dell

    (School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt, C-1320 Medical Center North, Nashville, TN 37232, USA
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Jonathan Creamer

    (School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt, C-1320 Medical Center North, Nashville, TN 37232, USA)

Abstract

When a scientific article is found to be either fraudulent or erroneous, one course of action available to both the authors and the publisher is to retract said article. Unfortunately, not all retraction notices properly inform the reader of the problems with a retracted article. This study developed a novel rubric for rating and standardizing the quality of retraction notices, and used it to assess the retraction notices of 171 retracted articles from 15 journals. Results suggest the rubric to be a robust, if preliminary, tool. Analysis of the retraction notices suggest that their quality has not improved over the last 50 years, that it varies both between and within journals, and that it is dependent on the field of science, the author of the retraction notice, and the reason for retraction. These results indicate a lack of uniformity in the retraction policies of individual journals and throughout the scientific literature. The rubric presented in this study could be adopted by journals to help standardize the writing of retraction notices.

Suggested Citation

  • Emma Bilbrey & Natalie O'Dell & Jonathan Creamer, 2014. "A Novel Rubric for Rating the Quality of Retraction Notices," Publications, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-13, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:2:y:2014:i:1:p:14-26:d:32448
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Nicola Lacetera & Lorenzo Zirulia, 2011. "The Economics of Scientific Misconduct," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(3), pages 568-603.
    2. Furman, Jeffrey L. & Jensen, Kyle & Murray, Fiona, 2012. "Governing knowledge in the scientific community: Exploring the role of retractions in biomedicine," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 276-290.
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    Cited by:

    1. Catalin Toma & Liliana Padureanu & Bogdan Toma, 2022. "Correction of the Scientific Production: Publisher Performance Evaluation Using a Dataset of 4844 PubMed Retractions," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-25, April.
    2. Shaoxiong (Brian) Xu & Guangwei Hu, 2018. "Retraction Notices: Who Authored Them?," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-18, January.
    3. Tariq Ahmad Shah & Sumeer Gul & Saimah Bashir & Suhail Ahmad & Assumpció Huertas & Andrea Oliveira & Farzana Gulzar & Ashaq Hussain Najar & Kanu Chakraborty, 2021. "Influence of accessibility (open and toll-based) of scholarly publications on retractions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 4589-4606, June.
    4. Felicitas Hesselmann & Verena Wienefoet & Martin Reinhart, 2014. "Measuring Scientific Misconduct—Lessons from Criminology," Publications, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-10, July.

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