The Rise of the Guest Editor-Discontinuities of Editorship in Scholarly Publishing.

Scholarly publishing lives on traditioned terminology that gives meaning to subjects such as authors, inhouse editors and external guest editors, artifacts such as articles, journals, special issues, and collected editions, or practices of acquisition, selection, and review. These subjects, artifacts, and practices ground the constitution of scholarly discourse. And yet, the meaning ascribed to each of these terms shifts, blurs, or is disguised as publishing culture shifts, which becomes manifest in new digital publishing technology, new forms of publishing management, and new forms of scholarly knowledge production. As a result, we may come to over- or underestimate changes in scholarly communication based on traditioned but shifting terminology. In this article, we discuss instances of scholarly publishing whose meaning shifted. We showcase the cultural shift that becomes manifest in the new, prolific guest editor. Though the term suggests an established subject, this editorial role crystallizes a new cultural setting of loosened discourse communities and temporal structures, a blurring of publishing genres and, ultimately, the foundations of academic knowledge production.

Cycles of invisibility: The limits of transparency in dealing with scientific misconduct.

Sanctions for plagiarism, falsification and fabrication in research are primarily symbolic. This paper investigates sanctions for scientific misconduct and their preceding investigation processes as visible and legitimate symbols. Using three different data sources (retraction notices, expert interviews, and a survey of scientists), we show that sanctions for scientific misconduct operate within a cycle of visibility, in which sanctions are highly visible, while investigation and decision-making procedures remain mostly invisible. This corresponds to high levels of acceptance of sanctions in the scientific community, but a low acceptance of the respective authorities. Such a punitiveness in turn exacerbates confidentiality concerns, so that authorities become even more secretive. We argue that punitiveness towards scientific misconduct is driven by such a cycle of invisibility.

The visibility of scientific misconduct: A review of the literature on retracted journal articles.

Retractions of scientific articles are becoming the most relevant institution for making sense of scientific misconduct. An increasing number of retracted articles, mainly attributed to misconduct, is currently providing a new empirical basis for research about scientific misconduct. This article reviews the relevant research literature from an interdisciplinary context. Furthermore, the results from these studies are contextualized sociologically by asking how scientific misconduct is made visible through retractions. This study treats retractions as an emerging institution that renders scientific misconduct visible, thus, following up on the sociology of deviance and its focus on visibility. The article shows that retractions, by highlighting individual cases of misconduct and general policies for preventing misconduct while obscuring the actors and processes through which retractions are effected, produce highly fragmented patterns of visibility. These patterns resemble the bifurcation in current justice systems.

Le retrait d'articles scientifiques après publication est devenu le principal instrument pour mesurer l'ampleur de la fraude scientifique. L'augmentation des cas de retrait d'article, essentiellement pour des raisons de fraude, fournit une nouvelle base empirique pour analyser la fraude scientifique. Cet article se propose de passer en revue la littérature scientifique traitant ce sujet dans un contexte interdisciplinaire. Il contextualise les résultats de cette étude dans le champ sociologique en s'interrogeant sur le mécanisme de dévoilement de la fraude. Il considère les retraits d'article comme un nouvel instrument de révélation de la fraude qui insiste sur la notion de visibilité dans une perspective sociologique de la déviance. En mettant l'accent sur les cas individuels et les politiques de prévention des fraudes tout en faisant l'impasse sur les acteurs et les procédures de retrait des articles, ce processus produit un espace fragmenté de visibilité. En cela, il s'apparente à la séparation des questions judiciaires (bifurcation) dans les décisions de justice.

Las retracciones de artículos científicos se están convirtiendo en la institución más relevante para dar sentido a la mala conducta científica. Un número creciente de artículos retractados, mayormente debido a la mala conducta, está proporcionando una nueva base empírica para la investigación sobre la mala conducta científica. Este artículo revisa la literatura de investigación relevante desde un contexto interdisciplinario. Además, los resultados de estos estudios se contextualizan sociológicamente preguntando cómo la mala conducta científica se hace visible a través de retracciones. Estamos tratando a retracciones como institución emergente que vuelve visible a la mala conducta científica, por lo tanto, seguimos a la sociología de la desviación y su enfoque en la visibilidad. Mostramos que las retracciones, al iluminar los casos individuales de mala conducta y las políticas generales para evitarla, oscurecen los actores y los procesos mediante los cuales se efectúan las retracciones, produciendo patrones altamente fragmentadas de visibilidad. Estos patrones se asemejan a la bifurcación en los sistemas de justicia actuales.