Researchers discover a new form of scientific fraud: Uncovering ‘sneaked references’

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 […]

Major publishers are banning ChatGPT from being listed as an academic author. What’s the big deal?

Phys.org January 31, 2023 Several papers published recently have listed ChatGPT as an author. Last week, both the Science and Nature journals declared their positions on the use of ChatGPT to generate articles. Science is updating its license and editorial policies to “specify that text generated by ChatGPT (or any other AI tools) cannot be used in the work, nor can figures, images, or graphics be the products of such tools”. Similarly, Nature has formulated the following principles: “No LLM (large language model) tool will be accepted as a credited author on a research paper… Researchers using LLM tools should […]

Flawed research not retracted fast enough to prevent spread of misinformation, study finds

Phys.org  June 15, 2022 The spread of potentially inaccurate or misleading results from retracted papers can harm the scientific community and the public. A team of researchers in the US (University of Michigan, Northwestern University) has quantified the amount and type of attention 3,851 retracted papers received over time in different online platforms. Comparing with a set of nonretracted control papers from the same journals with similar publication year, number of coauthors, and author impact, they showed that retracted papers receive more attention after publication not only on social media but also, on heavily curated platforms, such as news outlets […]