Dec 17, 2020 08:10 PM
The top retractions of 2020
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opini...2020-68284
INTRO: As 2020 was the year of the pandemic, COVID-19 loomed large in the world of retractions, too. According to our tracker in early December, 39 articles about the novel coronavirus have been retracted from preprint servers or peer-reviewed journals so far—a number we’re confident will grow. (That number does not include the retraction of an article from a Johns Hopkins student newspaper claiming that COVID-19 has had “relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.”) That’s out of a total of more than 1,650 retractions catalogued to date in 2020. Here are our picks for the most significant pandemic-related retractions... (MORE)
COVERED: Surgisphere ... hydroxychloroquine ... predatory journal behavior ... masks ineffective ... 5G telecom energy causing COVID-19 ... pandemic virus arrived by meteorite ... amulets ward off COVID-19 ... vitamin-D ... inflated death estimates ... virus infects white blood cells ... diversity ... unprofessional manner ... black hole at center of Earth ... sociology of spiders ... self-retracting
'Stink from the corpse': WA universities caught in vicious cycle for rankings, research and revenue
https://www.theage.com.au/national/stink...56mhx.html
INTRO: Australian universities are on a dangerous path, according to WA academics who say the pursuit of international money and federal funding has turned them into research businesses. The whistleblowers warn some of the state's most important institutions are caught in a vicious cycle of chasing expensive researchers and getting more research papers published in prestigious journals in order to climb global university rankings, which in turn delivers lucrative international students whose fees – in turn – help fund more research. The WA academics say the chase for what is now the measure of success – university rankings – has corrupted their fundamental mission: to deliver quality education to students.
At one end of the operation sits university management, earning close to seven-figure salaries and overseen by senates dominated by external business leaders without substantive experience in the higher education sector. At the other sits their clients – the students – whose university experience and breadth of study disciplines are being squeezed by narrowing fields of research. And in the middle are the academics, who have been increasingly segregated into working as either researchers or teachers, while ever-mounting teaching workloads are falling to casuals or PhD students and junior academics on 'minimum wage' grant money.
Academics from three of the four public WA universities, some who have spoken to WAtoday under the condition of anonymity, say the situation has become exploitative and are calling for a royal commission into higher education. "Everyone says [rankings] don’t matter, but they do," says Australian National University vice chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt.
"They drive students to you, they hold up your prestige in the community and governments. It's a shame they really aren't very good." The main way universities climb global rankings is by increasing their number of highly cited researchers – so-called 'high-cites' – whose research findings make the likes of peer-reviewed Nature and Science journals... (MORE)
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opini...2020-68284
INTRO: As 2020 was the year of the pandemic, COVID-19 loomed large in the world of retractions, too. According to our tracker in early December, 39 articles about the novel coronavirus have been retracted from preprint servers or peer-reviewed journals so far—a number we’re confident will grow. (That number does not include the retraction of an article from a Johns Hopkins student newspaper claiming that COVID-19 has had “relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.”) That’s out of a total of more than 1,650 retractions catalogued to date in 2020. Here are our picks for the most significant pandemic-related retractions... (MORE)
COVERED: Surgisphere ... hydroxychloroquine ... predatory journal behavior ... masks ineffective ... 5G telecom energy causing COVID-19 ... pandemic virus arrived by meteorite ... amulets ward off COVID-19 ... vitamin-D ... inflated death estimates ... virus infects white blood cells ... diversity ... unprofessional manner ... black hole at center of Earth ... sociology of spiders ... self-retracting
'Stink from the corpse': WA universities caught in vicious cycle for rankings, research and revenue
https://www.theage.com.au/national/stink...56mhx.html
INTRO: Australian universities are on a dangerous path, according to WA academics who say the pursuit of international money and federal funding has turned them into research businesses. The whistleblowers warn some of the state's most important institutions are caught in a vicious cycle of chasing expensive researchers and getting more research papers published in prestigious journals in order to climb global university rankings, which in turn delivers lucrative international students whose fees – in turn – help fund more research. The WA academics say the chase for what is now the measure of success – university rankings – has corrupted their fundamental mission: to deliver quality education to students.
At one end of the operation sits university management, earning close to seven-figure salaries and overseen by senates dominated by external business leaders without substantive experience in the higher education sector. At the other sits their clients – the students – whose university experience and breadth of study disciplines are being squeezed by narrowing fields of research. And in the middle are the academics, who have been increasingly segregated into working as either researchers or teachers, while ever-mounting teaching workloads are falling to casuals or PhD students and junior academics on 'minimum wage' grant money.
Academics from three of the four public WA universities, some who have spoken to WAtoday under the condition of anonymity, say the situation has become exploitative and are calling for a royal commission into higher education. "Everyone says [rankings] don’t matter, but they do," says Australian National University vice chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt.
"They drive students to you, they hold up your prestige in the community and governments. It's a shame they really aren't very good." The main way universities climb global rankings is by increasing their number of highly cited researchers – so-called 'high-cites' – whose research findings make the likes of peer-reviewed Nature and Science journals... (MORE)