Study bares underbelly of research
New Delhi, Dec. 18:
Faculty and scholars from some of India's leading science and engineering
institutions have published academic papers in so-called "predatory
journals" - online publications that accept poor-quality papers without
adequate peer review, an analysis has found.
The finding reflects what some scientists say
is a lack of institutional initiatives to curb poor-quality or junk research.
The analysis of 3,300 academic papers from
India in predatory journals has found that while government and private
colleges made up 51 per cent of the papers, national institutions contributed
11 per cent.
Three Indian PhD scholars have, through this
analysis, flagged concerns afresh about India's large contributions to
predatory journals, which many believe are exploiting researchers who are under
pressure to show papers to gain academic positions or promotions.
Their exercise, which also involved quizzing
fellow researchers, has found that about 80 per cent of those who had published
in predatory journals paid personally for the publication of their papers,
while others used funds from their institutions or government agencies.
"Our (government) funding agencies and
the University Grants Commission should act immediately to discourage
publishing in predatory journals," G. Saroja Seethapathy, a PhD scholar at
the school of pharmacy at the University of Oslo, Norway, who led the study,
told The Telegraph .
Seethapathy, collaborating with J.U. Santosh
Kumar and A.S. Hareesha, PhD scholars in institutions in Bangalore, scrutinised
3,300 arbitrarily selected papers from India that had been published between
September 2015 and February 2016 in 350 journals.
These journals were picked from a list
prepared by the American librarian Jeffrey Beall, who has been tracking
predatory journals.
Their analysis found that among the papers
from national institutions, 15 per cent emerged from laboratories under the
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, 9 per cent from the Indian
Institutes of Technology, and 42 per cent from other institutions, including
the Central Ayurveda Dietetics Research Institute, Bangalore.
"We already knew that India was a major
hub for predatory publishers. This new analysis shows there is also a big
market (among researchers) within India," said Madhukar Pai, a senior
epidemiologist at the McGill University, Canada, who was not associated with the
analysis.
"This can have disastrous consequences.
Bad or junk science can overwhelm the good; bad health research could impact
patient care. It may also mislead some researchers into wasting resources on
leads that are not real."
A global study last year of papers published
in predatory journals between 2010 and 2014 had found India dominating as a
source of predatory journals and in the authorship of papers in such journals.
The study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, by
information scientists from the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki,
Finland, had noted that 27 per cent of predatory publishers were India-based,
and 34 per cent of the papers in predatory journals worldwide were from Indian
institutions.
However, researchers who authored some of the
sampled papers argued that the definition of a predatory journal was subjective
and that not all the papers in journals labelled by some as predatory were
junk.
"The issue of predatory journals is
serious, but a journal someone calls predatory may not be viewed as predatory
by someone else," said a biotechnology teacher from a New Delhi-based
university.
"The scientific content of the papers
determines the respect a journal gets. Over time, journals that accept
poor-quality research will just die away."
Some scientists said that researchers may be
tempted to turn to predatory journals when their academic papers are rejected,
or look likely to be rejected, by other journals because they have failed or
are likely to fail to clear the peer review.
"As long as it is not fraudulent
research, what is the harm in making public research through any journal that
is easily accessible to those who want to read it?" asked one researcher.
India's departments of science and technology
and biotechnology, under the Union science and technology ministry, had in a
2014 policy document expressed support for open-access online publishing and
recognised the right of researchers to publish in journals of their own choice.
Many scientists are worried that India's
contributions to predatory journals will persist if government agencies,
including the University Grants Commission, fail to set well-defined rules to
curb the practice.
"This is a worldwide phenomenon but has
become big in India, probably because of neglect by policy makers and a lack of
awareness among young scholars and even faculty," said Krishnamurthy Bhat,
a professor at the Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Seethapathy and his colleagues, who had sent
questionnaires to 2,000 faculty members, received only 480 responses. Over 80
per cent of the respondents said they had sent their papers to predatory
journals despite being aware of the controversy linked to predatory publishing.
The analysis refutes suggestions that only
young, inexperienced scholars and teachers send papers to predatory journals.
Among those with such papers who responded to their questionnaire, 45 per cent
were senior teachers or scientists.
"It is unfortunate. Anyone can now buff
up a CV for jobs, promotions or fellowships by publishing in predatory journals
after paying a few rupees or dollars," Pai said. "This makes a
mockery of how good science is recognised and rewarded in academia."
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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