Thiruvananthapuram: The academics have resented the University Grants Commission (UGC) norm issued to the researches that they should publish articles only in UGC-recognised journals to get Academic Performance Indicator (API) score and become eligible for promotion.
This is not followed even in central universities. The academics welcomed the move to improve the quality of research, but pointed out that there was shortage of academic journals in many subjects.
The UGC issued an order to all universities and colleges in the country on September 16 to appoint and promote faculty members on the basis of its new list of approved journals. It had de-recognised the names of all predatory papers.
Around 800 verified and genuine journals have been included in the new UGC-CARE (Co-nsortium for Academic Research and Ethics) list that was compiled by a team, including scholars and subject experts from various academic councils. The previous list had over 5,000 journals. Of them, nearly 88 per cent were found to be predatory.
As per the present criterion, a PhD scholar should publish at least one article in a peer-reviewed academic journal. However, many pre-datory academic journals offer to publish art-icles on payment.
S.N. Rajesh Raj, associate professor of economics, Sikkim Central University, told DC that many universities do not bother to ensure publication in the listed journals. This is the case with even central universities, said Raj.
C. Swaraj, associate programme coordinator, State Resource Centre, welcomed the move to improve quality, but said there was lack of good academic journals. They should take proactive steps to improve their quality instead of derecognising them, he said.
Jiju Varghese Jacob, head of English department, Government Arts and Science College, Elanthoor, said that at international level quality of journals is asses-sed based on the Scopus Index. However, many such journals are not included in UGC-approved list. G. Sanjeev, assistant professor of economics of NSS Colle-ge of Engineering, Palakkad, said that many deserving journals were exc-luded while undeserving were included in the list.
