Amending published articles: time to rethink retractions and corrections?

Abstract

Academic publishing is evolving and our current system of correcting research post-publication is failing, both ideologically and practically. It does not encourage researchers to engage in necessary post-publication changes in a consistent way. Worse yet, post-publication 'updates' can be misconstrued as punishments or admissions of misconduct.We propose a different model that publishers of research can apply to the content they publish, ensuring that any post-publication amendments are seamless, transparent and propagated to all the countless places online where descriptions of research appear. At the center of our proposal is use of the neutral term "amendment" to describe all forms of post-publication change to an article.We lay out a straightforward and consistent process that applies to each of three types of amendment that differ only in the extent to which the study is amended: minor, major, and complete. This proposed system supports the dynamic nature of the research process itself as researchers continue to refine or extend the work, and removes the emotive climate particularly associated with retractions and corrections to published work. It allows researchers to cite and share the most up-to-date and complete versions of articles with certainty, and gives decision makers access to the most up-to-date information. Crucially, however, we do not underestimate the importance of investigations of potential misconduct. This proposal allows two interrelated processes -amendment of articles and investigation of misconduct -to be uncoupled temporally, allowing a more rapid correction of the literature at a journal while institutional investigations take place, without either having to follow the others' timeline.

Retracted Publications in Mental Health Literature: Discovery across Bibliographic Platforms

“…A COPE Working Group has proposed eliminating the word retraction and instead operating under an "amendment model," which considers scholarly publications to be living documents that may have multiple post-publication versions, which would be denoted as either "insubstantial," "substantial," or "wholesale/complete" (Barbour, Bloom, Lin, & Moylan, 2017). The aim behind such work is to destigmatize post-publication corrections and enhance transparency by outlining the extent of and reasons for the amendment.…”

Evolution in the Correction of the Literature: Preprints, Manuscript Versioning, Error Amendment, and Retract and Replace

“…The new models for correcting the literature that will be discussed in this paper relate primarily to Heckers et al (2015), Barbour et al (2017), Hosseini et al (2018), and ideas put forward in 2017 at the 5 th World Conference on Research Integrity by Fanelli et al 17 . Those ideas were concretized in a paper published in a Wiley journal that was accepted in one day, and in which the second author of the paper, Ioannidis, served as the Editor-in-Chief 18 , as was pointed out by Hindawi's Head of Research Integrity, Matt Hodgkinson 19 .…”

“…While the benefits of preprints are being increasingly marketed, the risks are not, including intellectual phishing, hidden conflicts of interest and hidden data, which are beginning to increase as (2016) paper in its unretracted state remains feely available on the black OA pirate site, Sci-Hub 34 , in essence annulling the effect of a retraction as academics around the world who use and access Sci-Hub (Bohannon, 2016) could easily continue to rely on and cite, this retracted paper. Barbour et al (2017) proposed referring to all corrections and retractions as "amendments", thereby removing the negative stigma associated with correcting or retracting faulty, erroneous or fraudulent literature. A priori, it is important to note that several of those who put forward these new models have potential invested interests, financial and otherwise.…”

“…A priori, it is important to note that several of those who put forward these new models have potential invested interests, financial and otherwise. Barbour, who is the former COPE Chair (2013-2017), and colleagues including Theo Bloom of the BMJ, Jennifer Lin of Crossref, and Elizabeth Moylan of BioMed Central, and all members of the STEM industry claiming to represent COPE in the preprint preceding the Barbour et al (2017) article, put forth a system in which amendments that are made would be classified as "insubstantial, substantial, and complete." Although the idea that a paper can be updated real time is not a novel ideathe concept already exists for books and preprintsit is the reasoning behind this new proposal that is alarming and of concern: "researchers continue to refine or extend the work, removing the emotive climate particularly associated with retractions and corrections to published work."…”

“…Although the idea that a paper can be updated real time is not a novel ideathe concept already exists for books and preprintsit is the reasoning behind this new proposal that is alarming and of concern: "researchers continue to refine or extend the work, removing the emotive climate particularly associated with retractions and corrections to published work." Barbour et al (2017) recognize that the COPE Guidelines for retractions, which have been used and implemented by hundreds or thousands of COPE member journals and publishers, are imperfect: "their consistent implementation has proved more difficult as publishing has evolved." In other words, until July 2017 and possibly beyond, academics have been exposed to an imperfect system that has been imposed by this ethics organization, despite COPE's knowledge of its flaws and imperfections.…”