集体造假这个事没人提?# Faculty - 发考题
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http://retractionwatch.com/2015/03/26/biomed-central-retracting
BioMed Central retracting 43 papers for fake peer review
BioMed Central is retracting 43 papers, following their investigation into
50 papers that raised suspicions of fake peer review, possibly involving
third-party companies selling the service.
In November 2014 we wrote about fake peer reviews for Nature; at that point
there had been about 110 retractions across several journals. The addition
of 16 retractions by Elsevier for the same reason, and today’s 43 from BMC,
brings retractions resulting from the phenomenon up to about 170.
BMC has also contacted institutions regarding 60 additional papers that were
rejected for publication, but seem to be part of the same kind of scam.
Regarding the third-party agents, BMC senior editor of scientific integrity
Elizabeth Moylan writes:
Some of the manipulations appear to have been conducted by third-party
agencies offering language-editing and submission assistance to authors. It
is unclear whether the authors of the manuscripts involved were aware that
the agencies were proposing fabricated reviewers on their behalf or whether
authors proposed fabricated names directly themselves.
When we asked for more information on these third parties, a representative
for the journal told us:
We’ve been told some things in confidence that we’re not reporting on our
blog, and the reason we’re not is we don’t have enough evidence to point
fingers. What we’ve done all along is point out the patterns that we have
noticed, and we’ve talked to other publishers and we’ve talked to [the
Committee on Publishing Ethics] to make sure that people know how we’re
stopping them.
In an attempt to limit submission of fake peer reviewers, BMC has turned off
the automated system that let authors provide contact information for
potential reviewers, which we tapped in our Nature story as a major
contributor to the problem. Authors will still be able to suggest reviewers
in their cover letters.
BMC has also sent an email to editors of BMC journals that addresses the
retractions and how peer review suggestions will function without an
automated option:
We appreciate that this functionality is useful and timesaving, but we
believe it is the ease with which author suggested reviewer suggestions can
be ‘clicked’ through that made it possible for authors or third party
agencies to manipulate our systems. It would not be appropriate to switch
the facility back on for some journals and not for others, so with this in
mind and in the absence of any secure means of protecting against such
manipulation across all of our 250+ journals we have made the decision to
leave this functionality switched off.
Authors will still be able to suggest potential peer reviewers in their
cover letter on submission. We are updating the submission system to inform
authors on how they can suggest reviewers and also updating our Information
for Authors pages to tell authors that they may use their cover letter to
suggest reviewers, but that they should provide institutional email
addresses where possible, or information which will help the editor to
verify the identity of the reviewer. Editors who find author suggestions
useful and are happy to implement some simple checks on the validity of the
suggestions are welcome to ask authors to suggest potential peer reviewers
in their cover letter.
Here’s the text BMC is using for the notices, most of which have gone live:
The Publisher and Editor regretfully retract this article [1] because the
peer-review process was inappropriately influenced and compromised. As a
result, the scientific integrity of the article cannot be guaranteed. A
systematic and detailed investigation suggests that a third party was
involved in supplying fabricated details of potential peer reviewers for a
large number of manuscripts submitted to different journals. In accordance
with recommendations from COPE we have retracted all affected published
articles, including this one. It was not possible to determine beyond doubt
that the authors of this particular article were aware of any third party
attempts to manipulate peer review of their manuscript.
We are waiting on the full list of retracted papers, but in the meantime,
here’s what comes up from a Google search of the retraction notice. We
found at least seven in the Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research.
BioMed Central retracting 43 papers for fake peer review
BioMed Central is retracting 43 papers, following their investigation into
50 papers that raised suspicions of fake peer review, possibly involving
third-party companies selling the service.
In November 2014 we wrote about fake peer reviews for Nature; at that point
there had been about 110 retractions across several journals. The addition
of 16 retractions by Elsevier for the same reason, and today’s 43 from BMC,
brings retractions resulting from the phenomenon up to about 170.
BMC has also contacted institutions regarding 60 additional papers that were
rejected for publication, but seem to be part of the same kind of scam.
Regarding the third-party agents, BMC senior editor of scientific integrity
Elizabeth Moylan writes:
Some of the manipulations appear to have been conducted by third-party
agencies offering language-editing and submission assistance to authors. It
is unclear whether the authors of the manuscripts involved were aware that
the agencies were proposing fabricated reviewers on their behalf or whether
authors proposed fabricated names directly themselves.
When we asked for more information on these third parties, a representative
for the journal told us:
We’ve been told some things in confidence that we’re not reporting on our
blog, and the reason we’re not is we don’t have enough evidence to point
fingers. What we’ve done all along is point out the patterns that we have
noticed, and we’ve talked to other publishers and we’ve talked to [the
Committee on Publishing Ethics] to make sure that people know how we’re
stopping them.
In an attempt to limit submission of fake peer reviewers, BMC has turned off
the automated system that let authors provide contact information for
potential reviewers, which we tapped in our Nature story as a major
contributor to the problem. Authors will still be able to suggest reviewers
in their cover letters.
BMC has also sent an email to editors of BMC journals that addresses the
retractions and how peer review suggestions will function without an
automated option:
We appreciate that this functionality is useful and timesaving, but we
believe it is the ease with which author suggested reviewer suggestions can
be ‘clicked’ through that made it possible for authors or third party
agencies to manipulate our systems. It would not be appropriate to switch
the facility back on for some journals and not for others, so with this in
mind and in the absence of any secure means of protecting against such
manipulation across all of our 250+ journals we have made the decision to
leave this functionality switched off.
Authors will still be able to suggest potential peer reviewers in their
cover letter on submission. We are updating the submission system to inform
authors on how they can suggest reviewers and also updating our Information
for Authors pages to tell authors that they may use their cover letter to
suggest reviewers, but that they should provide institutional email
addresses where possible, or information which will help the editor to
verify the identity of the reviewer. Editors who find author suggestions
useful and are happy to implement some simple checks on the validity of the
suggestions are welcome to ask authors to suggest potential peer reviewers
in their cover letter.
Here’s the text BMC is using for the notices, most of which have gone live:
The Publisher and Editor regretfully retract this article [1] because the
peer-review process was inappropriately influenced and compromised. As a
result, the scientific integrity of the article cannot be guaranteed. A
systematic and detailed investigation suggests that a third party was
involved in supplying fabricated details of potential peer reviewers for a
large number of manuscripts submitted to different journals. In accordance
with recommendations from COPE we have retracted all affected published
articles, including this one. It was not possible to determine beyond doubt
that the authors of this particular article were aware of any third party
attempts to manipulate peer review of their manuscript.
We are waiting on the full list of retracted papers, but in the meantime,
here’s what comes up from a Google search of the retraction notice. We
found at least seven in the Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research.