The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has announced the publication of the Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CREC) Recommended Practice (NISO RP-45-2024). This initiative, supported by funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, also benefited from research conducted by the University of Illinois' Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science (RISRS) project, which provided valuable insights to the Working Group.
Retracted publications are research outputs deemed flawed, unreliable, or invalidated from the scholarly record. These publications can be retracted for various reasons, including errors, misconduct, or fraud. Such retractions must be clearly communicated and widely understood to prevent the continued propagation of invalid research.
The NISO Recommended Practice establishes best practices for the creation, transfer, and display of retraction-related metadata. This ensures that all participants—publishers, aggregators, full-text hosts, libraries, and researchers—can communicate retraction information promptly. It also enables readers to readily identify the status of a publication, ensuring that they are aware of any issues with the research.
The NISO CREC Recommended Practice is freely available for access and implementation, providing an essential resource for the scholarly community.
Click here to read the original press release.
