Is it time for a Retraction Index? - Retraction Watch

We often hear — with data to back the statement — that top-tier journals, ranked by impact factor, retract more papers than lower-tier journals. For example, when Murat Cokol and colleagues compared journals’ retraction numbers in EMBO Reports in 2007, as Nature noted in its coverage of that study (h/t Richard van Noorden):

"Journals with high impact factors retract more papers, and low-impact journals are more likely not to retract them, the study finds. It also suggests that high- and low-impact journals differ little in detecting flawed articles before they are published."

One thing you notice when you look at Cokol et al’s plots is that although their models seem to take retractions “per capita” — in other words per study published – into account, they don’t report those figures.

Enter a paper published this week in Infection and Immunity (IAI) by Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall, “Retracted Science and the Retraction Index.” Fang, the editor of IAI, takes scientific integrity and retractions very seriously. He’s made his thinking on these issues clear every time we’ve asked, and was part of the review of the the Naoki Mori case that led to a 10-year ban on Mori publishing in American Society of Microbiology journals (including IAI). >>>

Turkish Education Minister under Plagiarism Charges - Copy, Shake, and Paste

Debora Weber-Wulff

The Nature blog reports that the new Turkish Minister of Education, Ömer Dinçer, lost his title of professor in 2005 on the basis of plagiarism in a textbook published in his name. Turkish Council of Higher Education took back his professorship title, and Dinçer lost his legal appeals case.

But on July 8, 2011, the Turkish Council of Higher Education cleared him, and on July 13 he was appointed Minister of Education. Nature spoke with the council, which confirmed that they had withdrawn the charge of plagiarism, but refused to elaborate.

Since this is a publicly available textbook, I would hope that Turkish academics can quickly set up a wiki and document the extent of the alleged plagiarism, in order to let the public judge for themselves how extensive the copying is.

Contested plagiarism charge on new Turkish government

Alison Abbott

German politicians found guilty of plagiarism have seen their careers stumble. First came the forced resignation in March of the German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg - the University of Bayreuth withdrew his PhD thesis after identifying extensive plagiarism. Other German politicians wielding doctor titles were then gleefully been targeted by plagiarism software users. Only last month, Silvana Koch-Mehrin of Germany's Free Democratic Party (FDP) was forced to withdraw from the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy after the University of Heidelberg had revoked her plagiarizing PhD. Her predecessor on the committee, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, had his own PhD revoked by the University of Bonn last week for plagiarism.

In Turkey, on the other hand, a controversial charge of plagiarism has not stopped Ömer Dinçer from being appointed minister of education in Prime Minister Erdogan’s new government. The new government was approved by parliament on 13 July.

Dinçer got his PhD from İstanbul University School of Business Administration in 1984. He went on to build up a high flying academic career in parallel with a political career, becoming chief undersecretary in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s first government in 2003, and minister of labour in Erdoğan’s second government after 2007 elections.

But he lost his title of professor in 2005 when the Turkish Council of Higher Education YÖK identified extensive plagiarism in his academic book Introduction to Business Administration. Dinçer appealed the charge, but it was upheld in court.

On 8 July newspapers reported that YÖK had quietly cleared him early this year to the dismay of many academics. YÖK confirmed to Nature that it had withdrawn the charge but did not provide reasons.

Dinçer has told newspapers that the charge of plagiarism was part of a smear campaign from a supposed network of people, known as Ergenekon, who favour a military coup.