In some Universities in Nigeria, many lecturers will be denied promotion simply because they do not have publications in Journals with Impact Factors. Meanwhile i don't think there are up to ten Journals with impact factors in Nigeria. In fact research conducted showed that only one Journal in Nigeria has impact factor.
In the real sense, is there any nexus between a Journals' impact factor and the quality of research output it produces. Or can we say that Journals with Impact Factors are better than those without impact factors? and why will institutions use publishing in a Journal with impact factor as a basis for assessing Lecturers?
Should all the Journals in Nigeria Fold up for not having impact factors? Have your say.
Thank you all, in fact there is an ongoing debate that i will share here after the argument is over for other scholars to have a glance at. I am very surprise because some lecturers in Nigeria suffer s much without any support in the form of grants for research advancement. The exchange rate of Naira vis-a-vis the US dollars is nothing to write home about. Some of these scholars cough out from their usually half-paid salaries to publish in some domestic Journals with at least, a fair review process. Telling them today that they will not be appraised simply because such Journals have no impact factor is misleading. Just as wondered by Dijana, what connection has an impact factor of a Journal to with the quality of reseacrh?
Valentine - it is a tricky situation that a number of countries face i.e. publish for national journals to assist them becoming competitive internationally (whereby eventually they will be considered worthy on applications for promotion/job applications as their citations and impact increase) or maintain the 'status quo' by targeting other national journals that are already established. There are no easy answers - and the 'system' usually dictates. Rather than wait for things to change, national groups could come together to try and put pressure on the systems for change on how individual academic 'status' is measured.
V.J Owan- No doubt publishing in high IF journals needs academic writing skills and expertise. But appraisal based on mere publications is totally inappropriate.
It is essential to publish in a trusted and indexed journals, but at the same time such academic activities must be free of constrains and depends on a researcher himself...
Universities all around the world are today ''running'' for better position in some types of rankings (e.g. Shanghai Ranking) and publishing in high impact factor journals helps them to get better position. That better position gives them funding.
Is there any connection between journals' impact factor and quality of the research? Not sure. Some authors (I think Moed, scientometrist) wrote something like ''quantitative indicators show very weak link to the quality of the research''. It is almost for sure that journals with impact factors are ''trusted'' journals in the sense of academic procedures in publishing, but many other journals could also be recognized as academically fair....
Thank you all, in fact there is an ongoing debate that i will share here after the argument is over for other scholars to have a glance at. I am very surprise because some lecturers in Nigeria suffer s much without any support in the form of grants for research advancement. The exchange rate of Naira vis-a-vis the US dollars is nothing to write home about. Some of these scholars cough out from their usually half-paid salaries to publish in some domestic Journals with at least, a fair review process. Telling them today that they will not be appraised simply because such Journals have no impact factor is misleading. Just as wondered by Dijana, what connection has an impact factor of a Journal to with the quality of reseacrh?
I think, you are must publish in journal with high impact factor and this help you to get better position
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