Phys.org  July 10, 2024 When researchers write a scholarly article, they must cite the work of peers to provide context, detail sources of inspiration and explain differences in approaches and results. A positive citation by other researchers is a key measure of visibility for a researcher’s own work. An international team of researchers (Sweden, France, Kazakhstan) reported evidence of an undocumented method to manipulate citation counts involving “sneaked” references. Sneaked references are registered as metadata for published scientific articles in which they do not appear. This manipulation exploits trusted relationships between publishers, the Crossref metadata registration agency, digital libraries, and […]