I’m not sure exactly when it happened within the past four weeks, but the article has now been retracted. Here is the explanation from the article’s page (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-013-1130-5):
“The Editor-in-Chief has decided to retract the following article G. Akhmat et al.: Educational reforms and internationalization of universities: evidence from major regions of the world. Scientometrics 98, pp. 2185-2205, DOI 10.1007/s11192-013-1130-5. Upon investigation carried out according to the Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines, it has been found that the article duplicates paragraphs of various internet sources as well as copied paragraphs from published papers. In particular the authors duplicated parts from Section V of a report on The Impact of Education on Economic Growth: Theory, Findings, and Policy Implications by Brian G. Dahlin, Duke University 2008 without proper attribution. The author(s) has (have) agreed to the retraction.”
Given the extent of verbatim copying from other works, I might’ve put “authors” in quotes…
In any case, I’m glad to see that the Editor-in-Chief of Scientometrics did the right thing here. Hopefully it will also lead to a more rigorous review and editorial process at the journal. At least one researcher who I have a great deal of respect for has published in the journal, so I would hate to see the reputation of the journal be tarnished to the point where it negatively affects people who have published in it.
