Journal retractions in oncology – a bibliometric study
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Bioinformatics, Oncology, Ethical Issues, Science Policy
- Keywords
- Oncology, bibliometrics, journal retractions, scientific misconduct, scientometrics, scientific publishing, cancer research
- Copyright
- © 2018 Pantziarka et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Journal retractions in oncology – a bibliometric study. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27427v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27427v1
Abstract
Background. A number of recent high-profile cases have focused attention on scientific misconduct and other problematic issues with the peer review process. The retraction of journal publications is an important part of the scientific publishing process that serves to remove flawed articles, (including, but not limited to, fraudulent results), from the literature. To date there have been few formal studies of journal retractions in the area of oncology. Methods. This article outlines the results of a bibliometric study of journal retractions from 1983 to 2018. Results. Analysis shows that article lifetime – that is the time period from initial publication to ultimate retraction – has decreased in recent years. It also shows that retraction rate has also increased over the same period. The causes and context of these trends are discussed and reference made to the dangers of scientific misconduct in oncology.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.