Pune: In an attempt to prevent publication of dubious journals and set uniform parameters to maintain the quality of academic research papers, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has recommended establishing Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics (CARE).
“High quality publications in reputed journals help in achieving higher global ranks and overall improvement of the quality of education. Publications in dubious sub-standard journals reflect adversely leading to long term academic damage and tarnishing of the image. A problem of dubious /sub-standard journals has become a serious concern all over the world. The percentage of research articles published in poor quality journals was reported to be high in India, which has adversely affected its image,” said the UGC circular.
It mentioned that UGC approved list of journals was created with an intention to help academic fraternity to bring measurable parameters, for the purpose of various academic evaluation of individuals and institutions. Against this background, with a view to refine and strengthen UGC approved a list of journals, the whole issue was reconsidered in a meeting held on November 14.
Earlier this year, Sakal Times had reported around 88 per cent of ‘UGC approved list of journals’ were found bogus. Followed by which now, UGC has directed to establish CARE which will provide ‘reference list of quality journals’ for academic purpose. CARE will be chaired by Vice-Chairman, Bhushan Patwardhan.
“We are forming this consortium to get inputs from all councils and government bodies from different areas to bring more credible, reliable and complete. The members of the consortium will recommend the reference list of journals based on the submitted list of quality research papers by experts from different fields. Those lists will be maintained by UGC and websites of members of the consortium,” said Patwardhan.
Research Journals in disciplines under Science, Engineering, Technology, Agriculture and BioMedical Sciences are well covered in the globally accepted scientific database like SCOPUS and Web of Science (WOS). Therefore, journals indexed in SCOPUS and WOS will be considered for all academic purposes in these disciplines.
“However, for other disciplines like Social Sciences, Humanities, Languages, Arts, Culture, Indian knowledge systems etc., a list of credible quality journals, India has to prepare and maintain a database and for this purpose, CARE will be established,” added Patwardhan.
The submitted journals will be analysed by an institution entrusted to scrutinise these journals based on the protocols provided by the commission. “This will not be approved list of journals but reference list for academic purposes. The expert committee appointed by the respective institution or university will decide the quality of the journal and submit it to the members of the consortium. The committee is suggested to not focus on the number of journals produced,” he said.
After CARE reference list of journals comes in force, UGC approved list of journals will become redundant. Until then, the existing UGC approved list of journals will remain valid, said Patwardhan.
This will address the issues of the unnecessary race of publishing a research paper, he added.
