The academic community in India has been left shocked by the University Grants Commission’s decision last week to drop 4,305 journals from its list of over 38,000 officially approved publications. The move has dealt a blow to the future of researchers and college and university teachers. According to University Grants Commission regulations, researchers need one or two publications in approved journals in order to submit their theses, and the appointments and promotions of academics also depend on the journals they publish in.
Coming from an institution whose reason for existence, other than financing, is the maintenance of academic standards of universities and colleges in the country, the arbitrary manner in which this exercise has been conducted is disturbing.
Changing UGC regulations
The University Grants Commission’s master list of acceptable journals is of relatively recent origin. In its earlier regulations of 2010, the relevant departments in universities could determine which journals were publication-worthy, which they did with greater knowledge of the concerned discipline than an institution like the University Grants Commission, which has a broad brief.
But in July 2016, the higher education regulator introduced new regulations laying down the eligibility of academics for appointment and promotion. These were followed in January 2017 by the publication of a list of 32,000-odd journals in which academics who wished to be considered for appointment and promotion could publish. The route of making it to the list of approved journals was diverse, from inclusion in a known citation index, such as the Indian Citation Index, to being recommended by university departments. This created an inbuilt imbalance in favour of the citation indexes, as journals listed in them walked in, without being subject to the more rigorous criteria for assessment for journals sent in for inclusion by university departments.
As many as 4,102 journals out of the 4,305 rejected journals are those sent in for inclusion by university departments. Also, journals in the arts and humanities and social sciences were assessed by the same criteria as were journals in the sciences, an evidently questionable practice, given the different disciplinary requirements.
The ostensible purpose of the review of journals, which was carried out by a Standing Committee on Notification of Journals, is to check predatory, fake or questionable journals. Predatory journals are low-quality journals that have no editorial standards or peer review system, but publish papers of those who pay them money. The University Grants Commission claims that it re-examined the journals in question on the basis of complaints about their quality, unfounded claims and lack of adequate publication information. The committee claims that it examined the publishing practices of the journals with respect to rules of submission of manuscripts, charges for publication if any, the peer review process and so on. However, on a closer examination of the list, the exercise appears to have been somewhat arbitrary, careless, inexact, and lacking in transparency. One indicator is that, at best, only 10 predatory journals have been excluded, others remain, with one estimate putting the figure at 35.
There are 191 journals that have been suspended pending further evaluation. These include the Review of Development and Change, published by the Madras Institute of Development Studies, the journal of National University of Educational Planning and Administration and the journal of the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.
Researchers hit hard
The University Grants Commission’s decision to slash the list of officially approved journals will have an impact on the career prospects of academics already reeling under the Academic Performance Indicators system of judging eligibility for posts, which includes a category assessing them on papers they have published. “Not only me, but many of my colleagues in History, are feeling anxious, apprehensive and agitated, with this sudden decision of the UGC,” said Sudha Tiwari, one such researcher.
There is also consternation among research scholars who have published in these journals and now find they cannot submit their theses or dissertations. Shubneet, a scholar who intends to submit his thesis this semester, has published in a journal dropped from the list. “Such arbitrary decisions generate uncertainty among research scholars like us,” he said. This comes on top of other measures such as the imposition of the requirement of Academic Performance Indicators points and the National Eligibility Test even for ad hoc jobs.
The information is remarkable. But I see less a question which I could answer! But more an expression of consternation and helplessness. This I can understand. But the situation is too opaque for every outsider to make an appropriate judgment. I regret the situation. We are forced to suppose: The extent of corruption must be tremendous!
The extreme right wing government strives to implement their corporate agenda.
Initially they scrapped Non-NET scholarship.
You can expect more subsidy cuts and anti-student moves soon.
But it was said by Chandan Poddar UGC is responsible for this situation. Are the members or the whole commission under pressure? Not independent? This would be a pity, if that's the case!
UGC should approved only branded publication houses like, Elsevier, Springer, inderscience, John Wiley and IEEE etc.
Dear Chandan Podder, thanks for providing all the details. This is the problem with policy makers in most parts of the Global South. Instead of taking the relevant parties on board and making the shift towards quality stringent systems by doling it out in phases, they want to revamp things at the cost of the career of thousands of academics. Sanity must prevail!
UGC removed more than 4000 journals from its list because of poor quality or incorrect or insufficient or false calims. Do not publish your articles in those journals which are removed from UGC list.Technical Report Journals Removed from UGC-Approved List of Journals
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