Taros Trenton, Zoppo Christopher, Yee Nathan, Hanna Jack, MacGinnis Christine
University of Massachusetts TH Chan School of Medicine, 55 N Lake Ave, Worcester, MA 01605 USA.
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Massachusetts TH Chan School of Medicine, Worcester, MA USA.
Scientometrics. 2023;128(5):2935-2943. doi: 10.1007/s11192-023-04707-4. Epub 2023 Apr 12.
With the expansion of research volume, coinciding with the age of the internet, the retraction of published papers from scientific journals has become crucial to preserving scientific integrity. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, both public and professional interest in scientific literature has grown as people attempt to educate themselves on the virus. The Retraction Watch Database COVID-19 blog was accessed in June and November of 2022 and analyzed to ensure articles met inclusion criteria. Articles were then accessed on Google Scholar and the Scopus database to find number of citations and SJR/CiteScore. The average SJR and CiteScore for a journal that published one of the articles was 1.531 and 7.3 respectively. The retracted articles were cited an average of 44.8 times, which was significantly higher than the average CiteScore (p = 0.01). Between June and November, retracted COVID-19 articles gained a total of 728 new citations, presence of "withdrawn" or "retracted" before article title did not affect citation rates. COPE guidelines for retraction statements were not met for 32% of articles. We believe retracted COVID-19 publications may have been more likely to include bold claims that garnered a disproportionately high amount of attention within the scientific community. Additionally, we found many journals were not forthright with explanations for why articles had been retracted. Retractions could be a tool used to add to the scientific discourse, but currently we are only getting half the data, the what and not the why.
随着研究量的增加，恰逢互联网时代，从科学期刊上撤回已发表的论文对于维护科学诚信至关重要。自新冠疫情开始以来，公众和专业人士对科学文献的兴趣都有所增长，因为人们试图了解这种病毒。2022年6月和11月访问了Retraction Watch数据库的新冠疫情博客并进行分析，以确保文章符合纳入标准。然后在谷歌学术和Scopus数据库上访问文章，以查找引用次数和SJR/ CiteScore。发表其中一篇文章的期刊的平均SJR和CiteScore分别为1.531和7.3。被撤回的文章平均被引用44.8次，这显著高于平均CiteScore（p = 0.01）。在6月至11月期间，被撤回的新冠疫情文章总共获得了728次新引用，文章标题前出现“撤回”或“撤销”字样并不影响引用率。32%的文章不符合COPE撤回声明指南。我们认为，被撤回的新冠疫情相关出版物可能更有可能包含大胆的主张，这些主张在科学界引起了不成比例的高度关注。此外，我们发现许多期刊对文章被撤回的原因没有给出坦率的解释。撤回可能是一种用于丰富科学讨论的工具，但目前我们只得到了一半的数据，即是什么，而不是为什么。
