Science Editing

Original Article

Trends, causes, and collaboration patterns of retracted Taiwanese medical research: a bibliometric study: Joshua Wang; Received January 3, 2025 Accepted February 5, 2025 Published online February 11, 2025; DOI: https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.360 [Epub ahead of print]

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Abstract PDF: Purpose
Retraction of published literature is an increasingly important mechanism for protecting the scholarly record in today’s accelerated publishing environment. Analyzing retracted articles offers unique insights into how research communities maintain academic integrity. Taiwan is a major contributor to global medical research and has sustained public and media interest in academic integrity. Yet, no comprehensive analysis of retractions involving Taiwan-affiliated authors has been conducted. This paper therefore aimed to systematically examine retractions in Taiwanese medical research.
Methods
Data extracted from both PubMed and the Retraction Watch Database were analyzed to determine the number of retracted articles and their reasons for retraction.
Results
In total, 181 retractions of medical research articles with at least one Taiwan-affiliated author were included in the analysis, with the number of retractions steadily increasing since the first retracted article was published in 1992. Taiwanese medical research has the 9th highest retraction rate among the top 21 countries in medical research publications (6.08 retractions per 10,000 publications). However, this rate is lower than those of other highly productive Asian countries, including China, Korea, Japan, and India. Fifty-eight (32.04%) of the retractions involved international collaboration, most commonly with authors affiliated with the United States and China. Over the past 33 years, the reasons for retraction have gradually shifted from plagiarism or data manipulation to compromised peer review systems, ethical issues, and authorship disputes.
Conclusion
The results reveal that retractions in Taiwanese medical research are evolving and distinct from those in neighboring regions. This finding highlights the need to examine Taiwanese medical researchers’ perspectives on academic integrity and current publishing trends.

Review

An algorithm for the selection of reporting guidelines: Soo Young Kim; Sci Ed. 2023;10(1):13-18. Published online November 14, 2022; DOI: https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.287

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3 Web of Science
2 Crossref

A reporting guideline can be defined as “a checklist, flow diagram, or structured text to guide authors in reporting a specific type of research, developed using explicit methodology.” A reporting guideline outlines the bare minimum of information that must be presented in a research report in order to provide a transparent and understandable explanation of what was done and what was discovered. Many reporting guidelines have been developed, and it has become important to select the most appropriate reporting guideline for a manuscript. Herein, I propose an algorithm for the selection of reporting guidelines. This algorithm was developed based on the research design classification system and the content presented for major reporting guidelines through the EQUATOR (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research) network. This algorithm asks 10 questions: “is it a protocol,” “is it secondary research,” “is it an in vivo animal study,” “is it qualitative research,” “is it economic evaluation research,” “is it a diagnostic accuracy study or prognostic research,” “is it quality improvement research,” “is it a non-comparative study,” “is it a comparative study between groups,” and “is it an experimental study?” According to the responses, 16 appropriate reporting guidelines are suggested. Using this algorithm will make it possible to select reporting guidelines rationally and transparently.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions received the Journal Impact Factor, 4.4 for the first time on June 28, 2023
Sun Huh
Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions.2023; 20: 21. CrossRef
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Korean Journal of Women Health Nursing.2023; 29(3): 147. CrossRef

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