[open-bibliography] Proposal for a Retraction index

Thu Aug 11 19:07:52 UTC 2011

Apparently scientific retractions are increasing at a ptremendous rate
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/08/11/scientific_retractions_a_growth_industry.php
(A retraction is where a  previously published paper is retracted. This may
mean it is expunged form the scientific record by the publisher or simply
stamped as RETRACTED). Retractions are usually because of sloppy science (ca
75%) or fraud (25%) - Ben O'Steen has done a nice piece of work showing the
citation network relating to the retracted MMR vaccine paper.
In
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/
there is a call for a retraction index. Note that the original retracted
paper may be unaltered (especially if it's been copied to a personal
machine) and it won't be obviously "wrong"

If we created a BibJSON Open Retraction index I think there would be a lot
of interest. It would also allow us to label other papers which
(recursively) consumed retracted work.

There's currently a few hundred or lwo thousands  retracted papers so it's a
feasible project for a hackathon or an obsessive human.

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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