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A multi-perspective analysis of retractions in life sciences

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  • Bhumika Bhatt

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore trends in retracted publications in life sciences and biomedical sciences over axes like time, countries, journals and impact factors, and topics. Nearly seven thousand publications, which comprise the entirety of retractions visible through PubMed as of August 2019, were used. This work involved sophisticated data collection and analysis techniques to use data from PubMed, Wikipedia, and WikiData, and study it with respect to the above mentioned axes. Importantly, I employ state-of-the-art analysis and visualization techniques from natural language processing (NLP) to understand the topics in retracted literature. To highlight a few results, the analyses demonstrate an increasing rate of retraction over time and noticeable differences in the publication quality (as measured by journal impact factor) among top countries. Moreover, while molecular biology and cancer dominate retractions, we also see a number of retractions not related to biology. The methods and results of this study can be applied to continuously understand the nature and evolution of retractions in life sciences, thus contributing to the health of this research ecosystem.

Suggested Citation

  • Bhumika Bhatt, 2021. "A multi-perspective analysis of retractions in life sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 4039-4054, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:126:y:2021:i:5:d:10.1007_s11192-021-03907-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-021-03907-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. R Grant Steen & Arturo Casadevall & Ferric C Fang, 2013. "Why Has the Number of Scientific Retractions Increased?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-9, July.
    2. Judit Bar-Ilan & Gali Halevi, 2017. "Post retraction citations in context: a case study," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 547-565, October.
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    1. Bakthavachalam Elango, 2022. "Characteristics of retracted editorial articles in the biomedical literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1431-1438, March.
    2. 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.

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