Editorial staff member resigns over magazine’s handling of plagiarized article – Retraction Watch

An architecture journal’s “failure to act promptly and proactively” in a case of plagiarism in a now-retracted review article has led to the resignation of a member of its editorial board, Retraction Watch has learned.

“I am shocked that it has taken essentially from November 2022 to now, September 2024, to resolve a fairly simple issue,” wrote Dirk H. R. Spennemann of Charles Sturt University in Albury, Australia, in a Sept. 18, 2024, email to the editor-in-chief of Buildingsan MDPI title.

The offending article, “A Review on Building Design as a Biomedical System for Preventing COVID-19 Pandemic,” was published in April 2022 in a special issue that Spennemann had edited.

But in June of that year, Marco Spada, a senior lecturer in architecture at the University of Suffolk in the United Kingdom, Buildings The work borrowed heavily from two earlier publications without proper attribution. Although many sentences were rewritten with synonyms, the plagiarism was extensive and obvious.

Spada had recognized the article, a version of which he had previously reviewed – and rejected – as a reference for Sustainabilityanother MDPI journal. Elements such as the title, the order in which the authors appeared, and part of the abstract had changed, Spada told us. But it was still the same article.

“It’s clear they outsmarted the system,” Spada said.

The review’s author, Mugahed Amran, an associate professor at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University in Al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia, did not respond to an email seeking comment. Neither did three of his co-authors, whose email addresses were listed in the article.

According to Spennemann, the journal didn’t tell him about Spada’s allegations until Oct. 25, 2022. At that point, he was “buried deep in the final semester grade,” he told us. On Nov. 18, “based on a (very regrettable) cursory investigation,” Spennemann concluded that the plagiarism was “not serious.”

However, two days later, Spada contacted Spennemann and provided details of his allegations, which Spennemann said Buildings had not done.

Based on an in-depth investigation of the plagiarized article and its source articles, Spennemann told us, he found that plagiarism had indeed occurred. On November 23, 2022, he recommended “asking the authors to retract/retract their article within one week or, failing that, having the article retracted by MDPI Buildings and removed from the website.”

Spennemann also complained to the magazine that, as guest editor of the special issue, he had not heard from Spada’s June email.

According to Spennemann, there was a lengthy back-and-forth with the magazine staff, during which he felt that action was being taken “behind the scenes.” He said the magazine asked five other members of the editorial board for their review and informed him on February 20, 2023, that it was referring the matter to the publisher’s ethics team.

Spennemann said he made several inquiries about the matter over the following months. On October 24, 2023, the journal told him that a retraction process had been initiated, but that authors had to agree, and that authors were not responding. Spennemann asked to be kept informed of further developments, he said, but was not formally notified of the retraction until September 10, 2024, four days after the retraction notice was posted on the journal’s website.

In his resignation letter to editor-in-chief David Arditi, seen by Retraction Watch, Spennemann wrote, among other things:

I am taking this step because you and the editors-in-chief of MDPI Buildings failed to act promptly and proactively in handling the plagiarism case regarding manuscript buildings-1606920.

As editor of the special issue “Post-COVID Architecture Research,” I was not made aware of allegations that had already been made on June 14, 2022 until October 25, 2022. I was provided with what I assumed were the full details of the case. After communication by an outside party (Dr. Marco Spada), I was made aware that the original allegation was much more detailed than I had been led to believe. I specifically requested the full set of information from the MDPI Buildings Editor-in-Chief, which was provided on November 20, 2022. Throughout the ensuing process, the MDPI Buildings Editor-in-Chief kept me in the dark about any progress unless I formally requested updates, often repeatedly. Even then, the updates I received were sparse and not detailed. It appears that MDPI Buildings did not pursue concerns with the authors of the manuscript in question with the importance the matter deserved, and gave the authors the opportunity to respond at their leisure rather than in a timely manner.

I am shocked that it has essentially taken from November 2022 to now, September 2024, to resolve an issue that was quite simple and that could and should have been resolved in six months or less with proper process.

According to Clarivate’s Web of Science, the review has been cited 15 times.

“It’s sad because we saw it when it was like two citations,” Spada told us. “It should have been a little bit faster, the (retraction) process.”

Spennemann added:

What is unacceptable is the delay and lack of responsiveness. If I may hazard a guess, it is not symptomatic of MDPI, but of Buildings magazine and the lack of editorial rigor of the editor-in-chief and managing editors. I have worked with the managing editor of MDPI Heritage (I am not on the board) and cannot help but notice a very different attitude and proactivity that is so lacking in Buildings.

Claire Xiang, editor-in-chief of Spennemann, responded to Spennemann’s resignation email. Buildingswrote to him on September 19:

When we first received your message about this manuscript, we took this issue seriously and asked for immediate investigation, which is in line with COPE’s suggestion. Unfortunately, the authors did not cooperate with our work at every step. They did not respond to our email or they replied that an author had a health problem.

MDPI has made great efforts to expedite the retraction process in all of our journals and has implemented a new process that has resulted in significant improvement in this area. As a result of this case, all journal staff will be trained in post-publication case management and the retraction process, and specific staff will be assigned to handle ethical cases in the future.

We have emailed MDPI and Arditi for comment. A representative from MDPI public relations replied:

As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, we are required to strictly adhere to their guidelines when it comes to removing an article (Retraction) from the scientific file. In situations of possible plagiarism, COPE provides specific guidelines on how to handle such complaints.

While we cannot provide specific details about this case, a typical investigation requires significant coordination between the editorial team, authors, editorial board members, and sometimes external stakeholders. We always aim to retract articles as quickly as possible, but the need to coordinate between different stakeholders means that this process takes time, as every step is important to completing this process satisfactorily.

Regarding how an article that had already been rejected by one MDPI journal for plagiarism could be accepted in another journal, the publisher explained the following:

The MDPI submission system, SUSY, is equipped to link all previous submissions of one manuscript to different MDPI journals. Due to major changes made by the authors to the original submitted version, this article was not identified as such.

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