4.4 Review

Threats to scholarly research integrity arising from paper mills: a rapid scoping review

期刊

CLINICAL RHEUMATOLOGY
卷 41, 期 7, 页码 2241-2248

出版社

SPRINGER LONDON LTD
DOI: 10.1007/s10067-022-06198-9

关键词

Ethics; Ethics in publishing; Paper mills; Plagiarism; Retraction of publication; Scientific misconduct

向作者/读者索取更多资源

This study examines the main characteristics of retracted articles due to paper mill activity, including the number of articles, citations, and authorship network. The findings show that the majority of retractions are from China, lower impact factor journals, and topics related to life sciences, cancer, and molecular biology. Paper mills greatly undermine the integrity of scientific research.
Paper mills are unethical outsourcing agencies proficient in fabricating fraudulent manuscripts submitted to scholarly journals. In earlier years, the activity of such companies involved plagiarism, but their processes have gained complexity, involving the fabrication of images and fake results. The objective of this study is to examine the main features of retracted paper mills' articles registered in the Retraction Watch database, from inception to the present, analyzing the number of articles per year, their number of citations, and their authorship network. Eligibility criteria for inclusion: retracted articles in any language due to paper mill activity. Retraction letters, notes, and notices, for exclusion. We collected the associated citations and the journals' impact factors of the retracted papers from Web of Science (Clarivate) and performed a data network analysis using VOSviewer software. This scoping review complies with PRISMA 2020 statement and main extensions. After a thorough analysis of the data, we identified 325 retracted articles due to suspected operations published in 31 journals (with a mean impact factor of 3.1). These retractions have produced 3708 citations. Nearly all retracted papers have come from China. Journal's impact factor lower than 7, life sciences journals, cancer, and molecular biology topics were common among retracted studies. The rapid increase of retractions is highly challenging. Paper mills damage scientific research integrity, exacerbating fraud, plagiarism, fake images, and simulated results. Rheumatologists should be fully aware of this growing phenomenon.

作者

我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。

评论

主要评分

4.4
评分不足

次要评分

新颖性
-
重要性
-
科学严谨性
-
评价这篇论文

推荐

暂无数据
暂无数据