Analyzing the Consistency of Retraction Indexing

Post-retraction citation may be partly due to authors and publishers' challenges in systematically identifying retracted publications. Previous research has repeatedly highlighted inconsistencies in the metadata and display of retracted publications. Yet limited work has investigated the indexing of retracted papers. To assess retraction indexing quality, we investigate the agreement in indexing retracted publications between 11 database sources, restricting to their coverage, resulting in a union list of 85,392 unique items. We also discuss common errors in indexing retracted publications. Our results reveal low retraction indexing agreement scores, indicating that databases widely disagree on indexing retracted publications they cover, leading to a lack of consistency in what publications are identified as retracted. Our findings highlight the need for clear and standard practices in the curation and management of retracted publications, in order to reduce inadvertent post-retraction citation and draw sound conclusions.