Help: How can I collect Retractions marked by Crossmark?

Hello everyone
I would like to study some of the characteristics of Retractions marked by Crossmark. Is there any good way to collect relevant data? :sob: :sob: :sob:

Hi Chen,

Crossmark updates are indexed in the metadata in our REST API. You can filter REST API queries to just those with Crossmark retractions using
filter=update-type:retraction

For example
https://0-api-crossref-org.libus.csd.mu.edu/works?filter=update-type:retraction

For more details on how to use the REST API please see the documentation at api.crossref.org

-Shayn

Thank you so much!You are such a nice person! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:I’ll look into it and ask you for help if I have a problem. :hand_with_index_finger_and_thumb_crossed: :hand_with_index_finger_and_thumb_crossed: :hand_with_index_finger_and_thumb_crossed:

Dear Shayn,
Dear Chen,
I have a follow up question on the issue of retractions. The Crossref blog article “News: Crossref and Retraction Watch” ( https://0-doi-org.libus.csd.mu.edu/10.13003/c23rw1d9 ) shows metadata on retractions such as “retraction-date”, “retraction-nature”, “source” of retraction notice and “reason”.

I cannot find those information in the json metadata I retrieve from Rest API. Even for the example provided in the blog article https://0-api-crossref-org.libus.csd.mu.edu/works/10.2147/cmar.s358886 I cannot reproduce the information.

How can the detailed information on retractions be retrieved?
Thank you very much in advance!
Eva

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Conduct a thorough literature review to identify existing studies or datasets related to retractions marked by Crossmark. This can give you insights into previous research methodologies and sources.

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@Eta If I understand correctly, you were hoping to get retraction updates by querying the publication directly? I was looking into this as well… were you able to find a way? Thanks! Stephane

Hey Stephane/ @sga,
I am not sure what exactly you mean by “updates of retractions”. I retrieved the retractions using the following query and compared the result with some DOI list. Applying an inner join I got those DOI in our database which had been rectracted.

curl https://0-api-crossref-org.libus.csd.mu.edu/works?filter=update-type:retraction&mailto=your@email.de&cursor={next_cursor}  --output tmp.json

In python code I made a loop and replaced the [next_cursor] each loop to retrieve the next page.

    for _ in range(1000):
        if number_items <= number_retractions:

            result = subprocess.run(f"curl https://0-api-crossref-org.libus.csd.mu.edu/works?filter=update-type:retraction&mailto=your@email.de&cursor={next_cursor}  --output tmp.json ".split())
            logging.info(result)
            with jsonlines.open('./tmp.json') as reader:
                for obj in reader:
                    # next cursor is needed to reach the next 20 items
                    next_cursor = obj['message']['next-cursor']
    

Perhaps this helps. Cheers, Eva/ Eta

Thanks Eva/@Eta! I thought you had found a way to obtain the retraction info (for example, a retraction field that had a date and some info when a publication had been retracted) directly from the works DOI (it would make sense, to me and with the little knowledge I have about how all this works, to be able to query that info directly from the DOI). What you do with the join achieves just that, so I now understand!

And now that I have looked into this further, and thanks to your query, I also see that we can actually obtain part of this info from the DOI directly (as I had hoped) by looking at the update-type field. I did not know how to find this, but it seems to be stored in update-to[0].updated.type. So your answer helps me in two ways :slight_smile:

Unfortunately, the retraction vs publication date still needs a bit of linking. To clarify, I will look at the first example in the current list of retractions obtained with your query (http://0-api-crossref-org.libus.csd.mu.edu/works/10.1186/1752-2897-7-8). Unfortunately, there isn’t a link to the actual retraction. In this case, the retraction has another DOI (http://0-api-crossref-org.libus.csd.mu.edu/works/10.1186/s13032-016-0032-y), and in that json we have the link info: updated-to[0].updated.DOI=“10.1186/1752-2897-7-8” (the original article), with the date and type (retraction) in sibling json fields. So I am guessing that, with your query, we obtain two references to the same retraction: the first is within the original article, and the second is within the publication of the retraction. So it is not yet all in a single place, but I am getting closer…

Thanks again, Stephane.

Check if Crossmark or the relevant publishing platforms have a database or API that provides information on retractions. Some publishers make retraction data available for research purposes. Collaborate with academic institutions or research organizations that may have access to datasets related to retractions. Some institutions collect and maintain databases on scholarly publications.
Ensure that your data collection methods adhere to ethical standards, especially if dealing with sensitive information. Obtain necessary permissions and approvals before proceeding with data collection.