Other than detecting impact in advance, alternative metrics could act as early warning signs of retractions: tentative findings of a study into the papers retracted by PLoS ONE

The so-called altmetrics—short for alternative metrics—have gained their place in the scholarly publishing landscape, especially providing article-level complementary measures. But what do they point to? A hypothesis has found its way into the recent literature: they could be an early sign of impact, conveying in advance the information carried later by citations. Here the focus is on another possible relationship, namely, the one that may exist between alternative metrics and retractions. The research question is as follows: in comparison to non-retracted, contemporary publications, are the retracted articles likely to be more (or less) viewed and commented (but also «tweeted» and «blogged») before the retraction takes place? The above relationship is tested on a set of n = 209 papers retracted by PLoS ONE and a control group including 2n = 418 contemporary, non-retracted articles featured in the same journal. Significant and positive differences in means are found concerning the mentions in peer review sites and the number of views and downloads. On the whole, by considering five alternative metrics, about one-fourth of the retractions are predicted correctly.