Publisher A has been developing an internal publisher style guide for retraction notices, but has not been able to find any obvious industry best practice when it comes to whether retractions should have an author byline, and if yes, who should be listed. Some retractions have no authors listed; others give 'The Editors of Journal X' as the author byline (in cases of retraction owing to author misconduct); and others still where the author byline matches that of the article being retracted (whether or not the original authors initiated or agreed to the retraction).
The publisher is currently favouring a 'who wrote and/or agreed to the retraction' approach, but is unsure whether that is fair vis-a-vis indexing. i.e., searching by author name would list retraction notices in the publication history of only those authors who initiate or agree to retractions of their work.
Question for COPE Council
- What would COPE advise as best practice?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.
There does not appear to be an agreed standard for who should be listed as the author of retraction notices. The National Library of Medicine (NLM) does not address the authorship byline in their guidance on corrections. The Council of Science Editors (CSE) also does not address the authorship of literature corrections.
The COPE Retraction guidelines state that 'It is helpful to include the authors and title of the retracted article in the retraction heading' and 'Retraction notices should mention the reasons and basis for the retraction to enable readers to understand why the article is unreliable and should also specify who is retracting the article...' Retractions (and expressions of concern) should be 'authored' by the journal/editorial office. It would be impractical to require an author byline, because retractions are often collaborations between multiple editors, editorial office staff, and publishers, sometimes with input from authors. These are editorial decisions, made either with or without the agreement of the authors. Even if the authors request a retraction, they do not actually retract it (the publisher does), nor would they normally write the retraction notice. The reasons for the retraction, the editor’s statement, and whether the authors agreed to it can be listed in the text of the retraction itself. Including the names of the authors who agree to the retraction is also a reasonable position but the authors would not get a byline. A requirement for an author byline could lead to a new form of authorship disputes around retraction bylines. So the byline can be the journal, whether or not it was initiated by the authors.
The concern about a retraction being indexed under a specific author's name is valid as there is still stigmatisation surrounding retractions. As long as the retraction is directly linked to the original publications to ensure the public record is corrected, they need not be directly attached to one or more specific authors.