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What you think about publication in a quality journal as a precondition to obtaining a doctoral degree in science?

It makes sense. For example, one of the questions always asked of examiners of doctoral theses is: "Is part of this thesis of publishable quality?" The foolproof way to ensure that the examiners have to tick the box is in fact to have published part of it beforehand. I do not believe it would be advisable to legislate that quality = Impact factor > X. (We just don't want publication in newspapers, that's all.)

I think to receive the degree of doctor of science the published must be :

1-ISI Thomson

2- Free

3- Transaction

4- Not selected paper from a conference

I agree with Mellah. (1 OR quality O.A. OR 3) There may be some other quality journals we have not identified or new, quality O.A. journals that may arise.

Also I think it is not necessary to legislate how many papers, chapters or books.

I think a good answer was given from Mr. Mellah Hacene. In addition, I want to emphasize on ISI Thomson journals. The use of ISI may lead to more objectivity when deciding who can or can't obtain his doctoral degree. In some environment, leaving the decision to some persons' evaluation (professors of an institution) may lead to subjectivity.

I agree with Dr. Mellah Hacene, otherwise universities are giving PhD to pleased, important influential peoples, who are not having any knowledge of subjects in which PhD is given.!!!!!!!!!!!!.

We have first to define what a PhD thesis is, and for what purpose we carry out PhD thesis. We have undergraduate senior projects results published in IEEE transactions, and other journals with impact factor, and we cannot say that they have the level of a PhD thesis. A Doctor has to be a good specialist in the domain of his thesis (in Electrical Engineering i.e.: Electrical Machines, Power Systems, Power Electronics, High Voltage Engineering....etc.) and not an engineer with high knowledge in a given phenomenon studied in a thesis. A thesis is also examined by a jury who is able to accept or reject its defense even if its results have been published.

A good thesis is generally the subject of many publications in best journals, and communications in specialized congresses having boards composed by best specialists in the World.

In conclusion, we defend a thesis and skills, and not only papers in journals. Any good engineer in a research centre could publish a lot of papers without being automatically a doctor.

This is a general view. Of course there are universities where it was possible to have a thesis composed of a monographic synthesis of the author carried out investigations and a given number of publications added as support. I don’t know if such way it is still in use or not.

In Estonia it is only possible to defend a thesis if you have published in a journal or at least in a book by a good publishing house (if you publish a thesis like a monograph, you need 1 publication like that; if like a collection of articles with a common introduction and conclusions, you need 3 or more); it is not necessary to publish in a newspaper.

("Newspaper" appears to be a translation problem!)

There used to be different ideas about this in the past. In some cases the requirement that a PhD thesis should be "an original" work was interpreted strictly in the sense that none of it could be published before.

Even today, none of the thesis-theme may have been published in a _thesis-book_ before.

In Germany, usually you would write your thesis first. Since a lot of people want to have an academic career they will publish their results in journals or conference proceedings afterwards anyway. But, in many cases it is also possible to publish parts of your thesis while you are still a PhD student. Finally, you can then combine your publications to a complete thesis. In contrast to what Tiia writes for Estonia, you first hand in your thesis, then have your defense, and finally publish your results as a book. This is independent of earlier publications in journals.

From my experience I can tell that parts of the thesis that were already published as papers are not checked that thoroughly as the rest. Professors tend to rely on the review processes of the journals. Back to the original question I would say that the publication in a journal is not enough to obtain a PhD. To me it does not really matter where you write down your thesis or if it is already published. The important part to me is the defense of your thesis: In Germany this is used to prove that the thesis is your own work. Otherwise someone else could write a journal article for you and put your name on it.

In Germany, by law a PhD can only be given by a University and a professor has to put his name on it. And thus the professor has a reputation to loose. Therefore, it is up to the professor if he accepts a student and his PhD topic. I think it should basically stay that way.

@Ian Kennedy,@ Mourad Adnane , @Bhupendra Desai and@ Simon Schröder Thank you you are welcome.

I think the best solution is to write his thesis and then support. The publication comes last.

In Greek universities (Engineering field - Polytechnic Schools) PhD cannot be completed if the student has not published a minimum number of journal publications in good quality journals. That's why the duration of the PhD procedure could be larger than in other countries but I think that finally the impact of the vast majority of the PhD's is very strong and important (Engineering Studies) in the science community.

The publication delay is one reason why PhD examiners here are asked "Is this thesis of publishable quality?", not "Have n chapters been accepted for publication?" The problem with post-PhD publication is that the PhD candidate may go into industry without gaining publication credits for the University!

Also note that a PhD by publications is more difficult to achieve, because of the tighter time frame, with parties outside the control of the university being on the critical path.

Hi Tarak,

Yes we have in our laboratory some students who have published the results of their senior project investigations in IEEE journals, conferences and other international journals of high quality,

The main question is what's a PhD thesis - Have we forgotten its definition? If the answer is now to publish some papers in a journal - with impact factor - listed in ISI Thomson (JCR).. we would not give any consideration to the doctorate level and the defence of a thesis would not have any importance ...

Since the investigations results have already been published, what is then defended?

Thanks @Ahmed Boubakeur , you are welcome.

@Ahmed: All the paper doctorate has to defend is that the reformatted papers form a cohesive whole, properly introduced and concluded, and are a significant contribution to human knowledge. The overall thesis-theme needs to be defended.

Besides defending the contents of your thesis, also the defense talk is used to show that your thesis is actually your own work. Especially in sciences it is hard to show that you know what you are talking about when you are not familiar with the work. Over the last couple of years Germany has uncovered a lot of plagiarism done by politicians concerning their doctoral theses. This show that a defense does not always help, but I bet that many professors are now more careful when determining if a doctoral candidate is actually knowledgeable about 'their' topic.

@Simon. You are quite right.

I'm with the requirement of this condition.

But I think the scientific council initially must refuse unclear Phd project.

It is good to publish your work, to make yourself known in the academic community, as researcher, and as your assignments and interests in PhD. In my country, as in many other countries this is even a compulsory assignment!

In my opinion, I think it is normal, if you work to publish the results, opinions, theoretical and practical approaches, everything that could be the starting points for others, for new way to research, or practical applications, do not you!?

Sometimes, a PhD thesis could be on a very narrow topic. So, how many journals (ISI indexed with high impact factor ) are interested to publish something like that? For instance: "Economic/ technical approach of the importance of fuzzy numbers in the bees flights", but this scientific approach could be interesting for few people but not for a whole scientific community as a ISI indexed Journal... so what is the answer to this dilemma!?

On the other hand, a very narrow topic, could be structured, can be studied and can give results, but even a null result is a breakthrough in the science / or could be considered a progress - with other words is a path that at the moment can be considered closed! -and this is it!!!

In this case it is almost impossible to this kind of topics to have high impact and to be frequently cited...

I feel this is an endless issue...

Publishing in high impact journals enhances a researchers citation counts as a prerequisite for tenure appointment and for recommendation into serious journal editorial boards or as a gust editor.

This also validates the contribution made in such a research. This is highly recommended. 

In my opinion, publication of a research paper  should not be a condition for the defense of a PhD thesis. A paper takes years to get it published in a good journal. Why a student is kept waiting for the degree. Papers are prerequisite for any tenure track job.  Most journals take at least two years except those who are fake journals.