Research done wrong: A comprehensive investigation of retracted publications in COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the publishing of a quantity of scientific research. In less than a year, a record of 200,000 scientific articles have been published on COVID-19. Publishing such a massive quantity of scientific research has instigated publishers to accelerate the review process. An upsurge in the publication rate has resulted in an increase in the retraction rate. This paper focuses on the COVID-19 studies originating across the world from 1 January 2020 to 10 October 2021. The data for this study were mined from http://retractiondatabase.org/. A total of 157 withdrawn articles on COVID-19 were retracted, and it was found that the United States of America contributed 31 (19.75%) retracted articles. Also, 16 (51.61%) of the retracted papers from the United States of America emerge in journals having an Impact Factor (IF). The study presents that 31 (19.75%) retracted articles were worked together by two authors, 26 (16.56%) with one author, and 22 (14.01%) by five authors. Furthermore, Elsevier publishers have the highest retraction rate with 80 (50.96%). Half (50%) of the articles were retracted with "no information" as a reason for retraction. Other reasons for retraction include concern/issues about data, duplication, journal error, lack of approval from a third party, plagiarism, etc.

Smartphone Usage among University Students during the Covid-19 pandemic: A Study

The unusual lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic has exploded globally, revealing the whole population and touching all areas in our lives: education, work, politics, entertainment, economy, markets, etc. Online teaching and learning during pandemics have exposed students to technology, ultimately resulting in ingesting of digital media. In this favour, the research aims to determine the use of smartphones among university students during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Therefore, this study aims to examine the use of smartphones by university students during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study collected 165 respondents from Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (A central university), Lucknow. This study used survey techniques, questionnaire tools and stratified random sampling techniques for collecting data. Data screening, factor analysis and reliability tests were conducted to confirm the validity and reliability of the instruments, further mean value was calculated, then t-test and ANOVA test were carried out to check the stated hypotheses. Factor analysis yielded three factors, i.e., improved learning, sharing information and access to materials. The findings suggested that gender has a significant difference with improved learning (p=0.050) and respondents age has a substantial difference with access to materials (p=0.022).