ArticleBMC research notes2018
A randomised investigation of journal responses to academic and journalist enquiry about possible scientific misconduct.
Article in BMC research notes, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Assessing and Raising Concerns About Duplicate Publication, Authorship Transgressions and Data Errors in a Body of Preclinical Research.Science and engineering ethics · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveWe investigated whether responses about possible scientific misconduct from journals to journalists would differ in speed, usefulness, and tone from responses to academics. Twelve journals that published 23 clinical trials about which concerns had been previously raised were randomly assigned to enquiries by a journalist or academics. Emails were sent every 3 weeks to the journal editor. We recorded the time for the journal to respond, and two investigators independently assessed the usefulness and tone of the journal responses.
results10/12 journals responded: 3 after one email, 5 after two emails, and 2 after three emails (median time from first email to response: 21 days; no difference in response times to journalist or academics, P = 0.25). Of the 10 responses, 8 indicated the journal was investigating, 5 had a positive tone, 4 a neutral tone, and 1 a negative tone. Five of the enquiries by the academics produced information of limited use and 1 no useful information, whereas none of the 6 journalist enquiries produced useful information (P = 0.015). None of the 10 responses was considered very useful. In conclusion, journal responses to a journalist were less useful than those to academics in understanding the status or outcomes of journal investigations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.