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From: Karen Weaver <melvil4u@GMAIL.COM> Date: August 21, 2009 7:23:28 PM EDT To: JESSE@LISTSERV.UTK.EDU Subject: 'Publish or perish' factor in spiralling retractions - Thomson Reuters analysis Reply-To: Open Lib/Info Sci Education Forum <JESSE@LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>
'Publish or perish' factor in spiralling retractions Retractions up tenfold
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=407...
20 August 2009
By Zoë Corbyn
Excerpts from the full article linked above / best, kw
..."The rate at which scientific journal articles are being retracted has increased roughly tenfold over the past two decades, an exclusive analysis for Times Higher Education reveals." ... ..."Growth in research fraud as a result of greater pressure on researchers to publish, improved detection and demands on editors to take action have been raised as possible factors in the change." ... ..."The study, by the academic-data provider Thomson Reuters, follows the retraction last month of a paper on the creation of sperm from human embryonic stem cells." ...
..."The Thomson Reuters analysis charts the number of peer-reviewed scientific-journal articles produced each year from 1990 and the number of retractions."... "It shows that over nearly 20 years the number of articles produced has doubled, but the number of retractions - still a small fraction of the literature - has increased 20 times. This is equal to a tenfold increase, factoring in the growth of articles."...
..."The data are extracted from the Thomson Reuters Web of Science citation database, and apply to the journals covered by its Science Citation Index Expanded." ..."Whereas in 1990, just five of the nearly 690,000 journal articles that were produced worldwide were retracted, last year the figure was 95 of the 1.4 million papers published." ... Please see COMPLETE article linked above / kw
------------------------------ Karen Weaver, MLS, Adjunct Faculty, Cataloging & Classification, The iSchool at Drexel University, College of Information Science & Technology, Philadelphia PA email: karen.weaver@ischool.drexel.edu / Electronic Resources Statistician, Duquesne University, Gumberg Library, Pittsburgh PA email: weaverk@duq.edu