Classification and analysis of PubPeer comments: How a web journal club is used

The PubPeer conundrum: Administrative challenges in research misconduct proceedings

The founders of PubPeer envisioned their website as an online form of a "journal club" that would facilitate post-publication peer review. Recently, PubPeer comments have led to a significant number of research misconduct proceedings - a development that could not have been anticipated when the current federal research misconduct regulations were developed two decades ago. Yet the number, frequency, and velocity of PubPeer comments identifying data integrity concerns, and institutional and government practices that treat all such comments as potential research misconduct allegations, have overwhelmed institutions and threaten to divert attention and resources away from other research integrity initiatives. Recent, high profile research misconduct cases accentuate the increasing public interest in research integrity and make it inevitable that the use of platforms such as PubPeer to challenge research findings will intensify. This article examines the origins of PubPeer and its central role in the modern era of online-based scouring of scientific publications for potential problems and outlines the challenges that institutions must manage in addressing issues identified on PubPeer. In conclusion, we discuss some potential enhancements to the investigatory process specified under federal regulations that could, if implemented, allow institutions to manage some of these challenges more efficiently.

Post-publication Peer Review with an Intention to Uncover Data/Result Irregularities and Potential Research Misconduct in Scientific Research: Vigilantism or Volunteerism?

Irregularities in data/results of scientific research might be spotted pre-publication by co-workers and reviewers, or post-publication by readers typically with vested interest. The latter might consist of fellow researchers in the same subject area who would naturally pay closer attention to a published paper. However, it is increasingly apparent that there are readers who interrogate papers in detail with a primary intention to identify potential problems with the work. Here, we consider post-publication peer review (PPPR) by individuals, or groups of individuals, who perform PPPRs with a perceptible intention to actively identify irregularities in published data/results and to expose potential research fraud or misconduct, or intentional misconduct exposing (IME)-PPPR. On one hand, such activities, when done anonymously or pseudonymously with no formal discourse, have been deemed as lacking in accountability, or perceived to incur some degree of maleficence, and have been labelled as vigilantism. On the other, these voluntary works have unravelled many instances of research misconduct and have helped to correct the literature. We explore the tangible benefits of IME-PPPR in detecting errors in published papers and from the perspectives of moral permissibility, research ethics, and the sociological perspective of science. We posit that the benefits of IME-PPPR activities that uncover clear evidence of misconduct, even when performed anonymously or pseudonymously, outweigh their perceived deficiencies. These activities contribute to a vigilant research culture that manifests the self-correcting nature of science, and are in line with the Mertonian norms of scientific ethos.

In defense of the ICMJE authorship guideline, a rejoinder to Curzer

Curzer (Curzer 2021. Authorship and justice: Credit and responsibility, Accountability in Research 28:1-22) has constructed cogent and important arguments against the ICMJE authorship criteria from various philosophical perspectives. Here, we provide differing opinions to Curzer's points, primarily from the perspective of biomedical sciences (for which the ICMJE authorship criteria are originally meant for). We could neither identify nor concur with Curzer's opinion of a "disconnect" between writer and researcher in contemporary biomedical science publications, or see definitive value in the notion that intellectual and non-intellectual contributors should be equally credited. Furthermore, we note that consequentialist argument for utility, Rawlsian justice, as well as Kantian deontology are all not in disagreement with the ICMJE criteria. In brief, while we find Curzer's arguments to be participant or people-centric, these are not particularly in line with either the philosophy or the practice of science. We posit that the key concept underlying the ICMJE authorship criteria, in which authorship entails a coupling of intellectual credit to accountability, should remain a cornerstone in the practice of scientific research.

Sustained Rise in Retractions in the Life Sciences Literature during the Pandemic Years 2020 and 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to all human endeavors, and scientific research has not been spared. We queried how the retraction of publications might have been affected during the pandemic years 2020–2021. Searches performed with Retraction Watch Database (RWD) revealed that the total number of retractions (as proxied by retraction-related notices) rose steadily from 2013 into the pandemic years 2020–2021. Interestingly, while retractions in the physical and social sciences tapered during 2020–2021, those of the basic life sciences and health sciences showed robust increases in 2020, with the former maintaining a steep rise in 2021. This rise in retractions belied a tapering of total relevant publications in the same year and is confirmed with a complementary search strategy in Scopus. The retraction rate in the medical sciences, particularly those relating to infectious disease, is clearly affected by the anomalous high retraction rate of COVID-19-related papers. However, the sustained increase in the retraction rate of the basic life sciences papers, could be due, at least partly, to retraction spikes in several journals. The rise in retractions in the life and medical sciences could be attributed to heightened post-publication peer review of papers in online platforms such as PubPeer, where numerous problematic papers have been revealed.

A Synthesis of the Formats for Correcting Erroneous and Fraudulent Academic Literature, and Associated Challenges

Academic publishing is undergoing a highly transformative process, and many established rules and value systems that are in place, such as traditional peer review (TPR) and preprints, are facing unprecedented challenges, including as a result of post-publication peer review. The integrity and validity of the academic literature continue to rely naively on blind trust, while TPR and preprints continue to fail to effectively screen out errors, fraud, and misconduct. Imperfect TPR invariably results in imperfect papers that have passed through varying levels of rigor of screening and validation. If errors or misconduct were not detected during TPR's editorial screening, but are detected at the post-publication stage, an opportunity is created to correct the academic record. Currently, the most common forms of correcting the academic literature are errata, corrigenda, expressions of concern, and retractions or withdrawals. Some additional measures to correct the literature have emerged, including manuscript versioning, amendments, partial retractions and retract and replace. Preprints can also be corrected if their version is updated. This paper discusses the risks, benefits and limitations of these forms of correcting the academic literature.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10838-022-09607-4.