Autism researchers lost 20 papers to retractions in January. This comes eight years after he recognized an editorial practice that could cause problems for publishers. The publisher, Elsevier, cited undisclosed conflicts of interest, duplicate methodologies, and a “compromised” peer review process as reasons for the retraction.
thesis is Research on developmental disorders When research in autism spectrum disorder Between 2013 and 2014 — when Johnny Mattson, then professor of psychology at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge and author of all papers, was editor-in-chief of both journals.
long delay: A few years into the investigation, the Elsevier journal retracted 24 papers by researcher Johnny Matson.
Elsevier found that 23 of the 24 retractions included the same explanation, and that the paper was retracted because it “did not contain one author’s declaration of a conflict of interest in relation to the diagnostic tool the paper endorsed.” He said it was because The statement also states that the same author was editor-in-chief of the journal at the time of publication and that there was no evidence of independent peer review by an outside reviewer. , along with the same peer review issues, was withdrawn for “lack of original methodology”.
Dorothy Bishop, a developmental neuropsychologist at the University of Oxford in England, who played a role in inspiring the journal to investigate Matson’s paper eight years ago, was surprised when it finally happened. “It never occurred to them to do anything, but that’s okay,” she says.
M.Atson, now retired, published papers until last month. He has over 800 of his publications and his index is highly cited at his 75. His research at LSU has focused on how to assess and treat autism and intellectual disability, and has developed diagnostic tools for the condition. Many of his publications, including most withdrawn, involve the use of diagnostic tools he developed.
Elsevier started research in 2015 based on the hint. The publisher reviewed a number of publications in 2016 and determined that no papers submitted to these two journals between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2014 were published “without external independent peer review.” A 12-person committee was convened to assess whether In 2017, we published an update, noting that the journal’s peer review policy had been adjusted and a new Editor-in-Chief was appointed in early 2015.
“I have over 900 publications, and this is only true for a handful of articles.” Johnny Mattson
An Elsevier spokesperson said: spectrum The committee reviewed 136 papers submitted and accepted during that two-year period and determined that 24 of them had not been sent to an external reviewer. Articles published before 2012 are not included, as 2012 was the year the journal switched to an online manuscript management system.
Conflict of interest claims arise from documents that have been retracted using a rating battery developed by Matson. These are sold by Disability Consultants, LLC, a Louisiana-registered business, to Dean Matson, the wife of Matson. This tie was not revealed in any of the 23 papers.
Matson said he didn’t realize at the time that a conflict of interest statement was necessary. As soon as he learned that, he “brought forward every submission to every journal,” he says.
Regarding peer review policies, Matson said the journal’s previous policy was to allow papers to be sent only to associate editors, skipping external peer review, in order to speed up the processing of papers. . Under Elsevier’s current policy, this is no longer allowed, Matson concedes.
AhAutism researcher Michelle Dawson first flagged Matson’s work on Twitter in 2010, tweeting allegations that Matson liked to self-cite and tended to publish in his journal. . In 2014, Dawson learned that Bishop was on the editorial board. Autism Spectrum Disorder Research warned her. This was news to Bishop, and she asked Matson to remove it. (Matson says she asked Bishop to sit on the board, and she accepted – Bishop says she doesn’t remember this, but admits it’s possible.)
Bishop then launched an investigation into Matson’s apparent self-publishing and wrote a blog post about her findings in 2015. Bishop’s data analysis of Matson’s publications focused on his two main points: self-citations and the share of his own publications in the journals he edited. Bishop has calculated that more than half of Matson’s citations are self-citations. This is an outlier compared to other prominent researchers in the field at the time who had less than 10% of his self-citation rate. One example: Matson’s 2012 paper aims to show the success of his BISCUIT, one of his scales, Autism Spectrum Disorder Researchhas 65 self-citations out of a total of 86 references.
Self-citation is a relatively common and well-studied method. When asked about it, Matson admits that in one paper he has 65 self-citations. “But let’s put this in perspective. I have over 900 of his publications, and this is only true for a handful of articles,” Matson said, adding, “Self There are no rules regarding citations,” he added.
“I think it’s a factory for mass production of fairly trivial papers.” Dorothy Bishop
The second issue Bishop raises in her analysis deals with Matson’s own publications in these two journals. Bishop found that his publication rate increased from about 15 to over 30 per year after he became editor-in-chief. Autism spectrum research disease in 2007. Between 2007 and 2015, Matson was the author of over 10% of papers published in 2015. Autism Spectrum Disorder ResearchThe fact that many of Mattson’s papers were published in the journals he edited is also not entirely unusual. A recent survey of Elsevier editors’ publishing practices found that 24% of them publish at least 10% of their papers in the journals they edit.
Matson feels that Bishop’s blog, press coverage, and online discourse on social media influenced Elsevier’s decision to retract. “I have published papers in over 100 different journals of his, but only two have he taken this approach,” he says. Most of all, he says, he thinks of the paper’s other authors. “I’m retired at this point, so this affects me little, but I’m worried about my previous Ph.D. Students were included,” he says.
“I don’t think he’s cheating,” Bishop says of Mattson. “I think it’s a factory for mass-producing fairly trivial documents.”
She still spends her time scraping publication data from various databases to find other editors who fit the same patterns she discovered in Matson’s publication in 2015. It’s “using your role as an editor to promote your publication. And that’s unethical.”
Citing this article: https://doi.org/10.53053/YIME4862
