Reviewing what is known about the citation, reuse, and spread of retracted science using the Empirical Retraction Lit database

Schneider, Jodi; Das, Susmita; White, William; Yip, Yee Yan ‘Vivien’; Proescholdt, Randi; the RISRS Team

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/114195 Copy

Description

Title

Reviewing what is known about the citation, reuse, and spread of retracted science using the Empirical Retraction Lit database

Author(s)

• Schneider, Jodi
• Das, Susmita
• White, William
• Yip, Yee Yan ‘Vivien’
• Proescholdt, Randi
• the RISRS Team

Issue Date

2022-05-30

Keyword(s)

• retraction
• citation
• spread of retracted science
• RISRS2020
• Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science
• literature reviews

Abstract

"Objective The goal of this project is to identify and synthesize empirical research about how retracted science is cited, reused, and spread.   Method This project analyzes sources from within an existing bibliography, Empirical Retraction Lit (10.31222/osf.io/ms579 Appendix C), which was created by systematically searching databases, supplemented by a citation-based search and hand search up through July 2021. We iteratively analyzed full-text articles in order to develop 17 topic areas (e.g.,""Authorship of retracted papers"", ""Processes and policies related to retraction"") subdivided into 118 fine-grained subtopics (e.g., ""Analysis of repeat offenses"", ""Retraction rates over time""). We identified three topics as primarily related to the spread of retracted science: citation of retracted papers; perceptions and discussions of retracted papers; and impacts of retraction. We scrutinized subcategories with any overlap between topics and recorded a rationale for including or excluding these subtopics. After tentative inclusion decisions were complete, two reviewers rescreened all titles, flagging articles to revisit for inclusion or exclusion. Analysis of the papers is ongoing.   Results Of the 385 items in the bibliography, 134 are included in this review. Categorizations for all 385 items are recorded in Version 2.20 (10.5281/zenodo.5498500) and searchable via an online bibliography (https://infoqualitylab.org/projects/risrs2020/bibliography/). Empirical research about retraction is published in a diffuse set of journals, including journals on ethics; information science; meta-science and scientometrics; and domain sciences, especially medical specialties. Most studies related to the spread of retracted science analyze citations; news; social media impact; and the impact on review literature, especially systematic reviews. The spread of retracted science has received limited attention outside of medicine. The earliest two studies we located were both published in 1990 and focused on citations to retracted literature and on citations to a misconduct-associated author's work.   Conclusion To our knowledge, this is the first literature review discussing citation, reuse or spread of retracted science. Very little information was found regarding retracted humanities and social sciences research. Limitations: Relevant work published after July 2021 has not been included, and items published earlier may have been missed by search processes. This work-in-progress will have additional conclusions when our analysis is complete."

Type of Resource

• text
• other
• still image

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/114195

Sponsor(s)/Grant Number(s)

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation G-2020-12623

Owning Collections