Report: “Journals with High Rates of Suspicious Papers Flagged by Science-Integrity Start-Up”

From Nature, by Richard Van Noorden:

The science-integrity website Argos, which was launched in September by Scitility, a technology firm headquartered in Sparks, Nevada, gives papers a risk score on the basis of their authors’ publication records, and on whether the paper heavily cites already-retracted research. A paper categorized as ‘high risk’ might have multiple authors whose other studies have been retracted for reasons related to misconduct, for example. Having a high score doesn’t prove that a paper is low quality, but suggests that it is worth investigating.

The papers that most heavily cite retracted studies

Argos is one of a growing number of research-integrity tools that look for red flags in papers. These include the Papermill Alarm, made by Clear Skies, and Signals, by Research Signals, both London-based firms. Because creators of such software sell their manuscript-screening tools to publishers, they are generally reluctant to name affected journals. But Argos, which is offering free accounts to individuals and fuller access to science-integrity sleuths and journalists, is the first to show public insights.

“We wanted to build a piece of technology that was able to see hidden patterns and bring transparency to the industry,” says Scitility co-founder Erik de Boer, who is based in Roosendaal, the Netherlands.

By early October, Argos had flagged more than 40,000 high-risk and 180,000 medium-risk papers. It has also indexed more than 50,000 retracted papers.

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