Reference no: EM133661371 , Length: 1200 Words
Data Analytics and Visualisation
Project and Data Brief
The retraction of research papers refers to academic publishers' act of withdrawing their published papers from circulation. A broad range of scientific errors or academic misconducts could result in a published paper being retracted, for example, a paper's controversial assertion that the 5G technology could lead to COVID-19 infections or the infamous research paper that links vaccination to autism in children.1,2
The year 2023 saw a record number of annual retractions involving more than 10,000 research papers. 3 This statistic may suggest the increased number of questionable scientific practices. On the other hand, governments are increasingly leaning on scientific evidence to formulate laws and regulations (think of various governments' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic). So, the latest retraction statistic is concerning to us all because bad science could lead to bad public policies.
The Retraction Watch is a non-profit organisation that keeps track of research paper retractions worldwide. It regularly provisions retraction datasets to the public. 4 Understanding what drives past retractions could help prevent or mitigate bad practices in science.
This Project Brief outlines the high-level data analytics objectives for the PRT564 group project, including the description of the primary dataset.
Project objectives
To explore relevant, interesting, and actionable trends of past retractions (essential objective)
To predict important aspects of future retractions (desirable objective)
Primary dataset
You must work with the dataset retractions35215.csv downloadable from Learnline. The dataset contains 35,215 retraction records made available by the Retraction Watch database through Crossref on 15 Jan 2024. This is your primary dataset, which contains the following attributes and their meaning:
| Record ID |
The numerical value uniquely identifies an instance of retraction |
| Title |
Title of the retracted paper |
| Subject |
The field of study most likely associated with the retracted paper. |
| Institution |
A semi-colon delineated list of the retracted paper's author affiliations |
| Journal |
Name of the journal that originally published the retracted paper |
| Publisher |
Name of the journal's publisher |
| Country |
A semi-colon delineated list of author countries |
| Author |
A semi-colon delineated list of the retracted paper's author names (first name last |
| name) |
|
| URLS |
Link to relevant posts on retractionwatch.com website |
| ArticleType |
Type of retracted paper |
| RetractionDate |
Date of retraction (mm/dd/yyyy) |
| RetractionDOI |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the retraction notice issued by the publishing journal |
| RetractionPubMedID |
PubMed ID of the retraction notice (if applicable) |
| OriginalPaperDate |
Date of the retracted paper's original publication (mm/dd/yyyy) |
| OriginalPaperDOI |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the original publication |
| OriginalPaperPubMedID |
PubMed ID of the original publication (if applicable) |
| RetractionNature |
Category of retraction |
| Reason |
A semi-colon delineated list of reasons why the paper was retracted |
| Paywalled |
A paywalled journal requires paid access to its research papers |
| Notes |
Additional notes |
| CitationCount |
The total number of citations received by the retracted paper on 16 Jan 2024 on Scopus |