Abstract
Open data has been hailed as an important corrective for the credibility crisis in science. This paper makes an initial attempt to measure the relationship between open data and credible research by analyzing the number of retracted articles with attached or open data in an open access science journal. Using Retraction Watch, retracted papers published in PLoS between 2014 and 2018 are identified. Of the 152 total retracted papers, fewer than 15% attached their data. Since about half of the published articles have open data, and so few of the retracted ones do, we put forth the preliminary notion that open data, especially high quality and well-curated data, might imply scientific credibility.
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Notes
- 1.
The PLoS retraction policy is at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/corrections-and-retractions, referencing and including the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) rules given at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/scientific-misconduct-expressions-of-concern-and-retraction.html. Note that a retraction does not necessarily imply either malfeasance or a significant error; articles can be retracted for a missing author, for example.
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Lesk, M., Mattern, J.B., Moulaison Sandy, H. (2019). Are Papers with Open Data More Credible? An Analysis of Open Data Availability in Retracted PLoS Articles. In: Taylor, N., Christian-Lamb, C., Martin, M., Nardi, B. (eds) Information in Contemporary Society. iConference 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11420. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15742-5_14
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