Retractions from altmetric and bibliometric perspectives

In the battle for better science, the research community must obliterate, at times, works from the publication record, a process known as retraction. Additionally, publications and papers accumulate an altmetric attention score, which is a complementary metric to citation-based metrics. We used the citations, Journal Impact Factor, time between publication and retraction and the reasons behind retraction in order to find determinants of the retracted papers altmetric attention score. To find these determinants we compared two samples, one of retractions with top altmetric attention scores and one of retractions with altmetric attention scores chosen at random. We used a binary choice model to estimate the probability of being retracted due to misconduct or error. The model shows positive effects of altmetric scores and the time between publication and retraction on the probability to be retracted due to misconduct in the top sample. We conclude that there is an association between retraction due to misconduct and higher altmetric attention scores within the top sample.