Author: Elliott Lumb

We’re pleased to announce our newest signal — risky email domains.  This signal is designed to help publishers further reduce research integrity risks and protect the quality of the scholarly record by identifying a subtle issue related to author identity and manuscript provenance. When a manuscript is uploaded to Signals, it extracts the authors’ email…

In the 1980s, Robert Slutsky and John Darsee were two of the most prolific authors in medical research. At the University of California San Diego, Slutsky was publishing one article every ten days. On the other side of the US, at Harvard Medical School, Darsee was still in his early 30s but had already published…

Another day, another case of high-profile research fraud.  An internal review at MIT has concluded that a paper submitted by a PhD student should be withdrawn from both arXiv and The Quarterly Journal of Economics, where it was submitted for publication. This is no normal first-year PhD paper. The article attracted coverage from The Wall…

At Signals, we evaluate the credibility of any article or manuscript using the Signals Data Graph, which stores and analyzes the world’s publication data and combines it with expert knowledge. Because we can evaluate every article, we can also aggregate these evaluations to provide insights across journals or institutions. This helps publishers quickly identify, understand,…

Last week, Nicko and I attended the Researcher to Reader conference in London. The event brings together researchers, publishers, and institutions, creating opportunities for interesting conversations and learning. We’re already looking forward to next year’s event.  During the conference, we gave a talk on ‘The Future of Research Integrity’. We highlighted historic cases of research…

Institution integrity We’re excited to release a set of new signals related to authors’ institutions.  To help protect the reputation of journals and speed up author checks, Signals now highlights when authors are affiliated with institutions with high rates of ‘problematic retractions’ (retractions due to fraud, including papermills).  These signals help editors to make informed decisions…