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Retraction Watch Database
webretractionwatch.com·retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database/
Relevant to AI safety primarily as a tool for auditing training data quality and scientific reliability; highlights systemic issues in peer review that could affect AI systems trained on scientific literature.
Metadata
Importance: 35/100tool pagedataset
Summary
The Retraction Watch Database is a searchable repository tracking retractions, expressions of concern, and corrections across scientific literature. It documents the reasons behind retractions—including fraud, data fabrication, and plagiarism—serving as a key resource for assessing scientific integrity. The database supports researchers, journalists, and institutions in monitoring the reliability of published science.
Key Points
- •Tracks tens of thousands of retracted papers across disciplines, providing transparency into failures of peer review and scientific misconduct.
- •Documents reasons for retraction including data fabrication, duplicate publication, plagiarism, and errors, enabling pattern analysis.
- •Relevant to AI safety as AI training data may include retracted or unreliable papers, affecting model reliability.
- •Supports the study of paper mills and systemic integrity failures that undermine trust in scientific knowledge bases.
- •Freely searchable database useful for auditing literature used in AI research or policy-relevant scientific claims.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific Knowledge Corruption | Risk | 91.0 |
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[Skip to content](https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/#content)
_updated October 23, 2024_
 Welcome to the [Retraction Watch Database](http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx?) (RWDB). We’ve prepared this document to help you get started, and to answer some questions that are likely to come up. This document will evolve as users have more questions, so please feel free to contact us at [team@retractionwatch.com](mailto:team@retractionwatch.com).
You’ll also find more in these appendices:
- [Appendix A: Fields](https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/retraction-watch-database-user-guide-appendix-a-fields/)
- [Appendix B: Reasons](https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/retraction-watch-database-user-guide-appendix-b-reasons/)
- [Appendix C: Article Types](https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/retraction-watch-database-user-guide-appendix-c-article-types/)
- [Appendix D: Changes](https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/retraction-watch-database-user-guide-appendix-d-changes/)
- [Appendix E: Glossary](https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/appendix-e-glossary/)
## User Guide
As of October 23, 2024, searches are required to have criteria entered in at least one of the following fields:
- Author
- Title
- Journal
- Publisher
- Affiliation(s)
- Country(s)
- Article Types(s)
- Original Paper Date ranges
- Retraction or Other Notices Date Ranges
- PMID or DOI for either original paper, notice, or both
This became necessary because the rapidly expanding size of the RWDB has led to overload, slowing data entry by our team and in some cases grinding it to a halt.
For those who wish to do unlimited searching or view the entire dataset, it is readily obtained [through Crossref](https://gitlab.com/crossref/retraction-watch-data).
For details on how we gather data, please see [this file](https://retractionwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Building-The-Database.pdf). Also please review this [exciting announcement](https://www.crossref.org/blog/news-crossref-and-retraction-watch/) about the open availability of the database thanks to its acquisition by Crossref. The entire database can be readily accessed through [this link.](https://gitlab.com/crossref/retraction-watch-data) We strongly encourage you to use the link if you are doing multiple searches, or searches designed to return numerous entries. Just keep in mind that the information will change as the entries in the RWDB are added or amended.
Should you wish to reference the Retraction Watch Database, we suggest the following as a basic form (of course, different citation styles may require different formatting):
The Retraction Watch Database \[Internet\]. New York: The Center for Scientific Integrity. 2018. ISSN: 2692-4579. \[Cited (applicable d
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