UGC removes many journals from approved list, including EPW online
ANIRBAN BANDYOPADHYAY | May 04th 2018
UGC
recently published names of 4,305 journals on its website that have
been removed from the list of UGC-approved journals. The decision was
taken by a Standing Committee on Notification of Journals
UGC, or
University Grants Commission, the government agency that funds and
approves Universities in India and the credentials of academic
professionals employed there and in affiliated undergraduate colleges,
recently published a list of 4,305 journals on its website.
The
preface to the list states that they have been removed from the list of
UGC approved journals. The decision has been made by a Standing
Committee on Notification of Journals. The job has been carried out with
such meticulous inefficiency that it is hard to take the list
seriously. The point may be established with a simple exercise, easy
enough to be carried out by any internet literate individual. But it is
useful, at the outset, to see what the list wishes to accomplish. Let
the technique of how to interrogate it appear in due course.
The
Committee had to reassess every journal recommended by the universities
and also those listed in Indian Citation Index, following complaints by
faculty, researchers and other members of the academic community, along
with the press and media representatives. The complaint, as well as the
ground for cancelling their approval, was broadly that these journals
were of poor quality, or that they supplied incorrect or insufficient
information or made false claims.
It is helpful to be clear about
what the criteria for selection as a UGC approved journal are. There
are two ways in which a journal may be included. The first appears to be
a default entry route. If a journal is already part of a credible
citation index, or belongs to an elite database of journals accredited
or indexed by a credible regime of indexation, it may walk into this
list. For instance, journals already indexed in, or with, Web of Science
(Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index and Humanities
Citation Index) or Scopus or Indian Citation Index probably finds a
default entry, provided the claims to this effect are verified.
Journals
recommended by UGC Standing Committee and Language Committee, along
with those recommended by Universities too find a place, but with a
rider. The total number of journals approved by UGC hovers around
32,000, or so claims the document explaining the methodology of
selection.
There is enough data in the list to make a credible
prima facie case for all of these charges. Finally, there is the bread
and butter consideration for academics seeking appointment or promotion
in higher education institutions in India. Publication in these journals
brings rating points. Those rating points decide relative eligibility
and seniority for appointment or promotion in Indian colleges or
universities.
There is a second route of entry, which is distinct
from, but not unrelated to, the first. It is that every journal must
score at least five out of a possible maximum score of nine, as provided
in a rating scheme with eight listed criteria.
This additional
requirement appears to apply to two classes of journals, those
recommended by the UGC Standing Committee and Languages Committee, and
those recommended by various universities. For journals which claim to
be listed in an already approved database, such as SoW or Scopus, the
responsibility of the UGC standing committee is limited to verifying
that claim. Once those claims are successfully verified, the journals
concerned appear to be entitled to a default entry.
It would seem
also that the requirement of entry into those databases probably
ensures that those eight criteria are complied with. It is hard to
confirm this assumption without access to the basic reason why UGC has
resolved to offer default entry to journals already listed to those
approved databases. That is not available, as yet, to this commentator.
It is similarly not clear why claims to inclusion in Indian Citation
Database were chosen for reverification. Whatever it is, it does not
reflect well on the overall reputation of ICI.
There are many
ways the flaws behind the making of the list may be identified. One is
to take up each criteria for separate analysis, or to take them all as a
whole and question its basic rationality. Another is to cry that it is a
conspiracy by right wing forces, which it may or may not be, for
journals published by purportedly right wing institutions or centres too
have been rejected in large enough numbers. It could be argued that
highly respected journals have been rejected on obscure grounds, which
too may or may not be valid. It could be submitted that the list removes
important journals hosting research on Dalits, tribals and other
marginalized communities. It could be said that science journals and
humanities journals should not be held to the same criteria.
There
is enough data in the list to make a credible prima facie case for all
of these charges. Finally, there is the bread and butter consideration
for academics seeking appointment or promotion in higher education
institutions in India. Publication in these journals brings rating
points. Those rating points decide relative eligibility and seniority
for appointment or promotion in Indian colleges or universities. An
academic having published or scheduled to publish or hoping to publish
in any of these journals now arguably runs the risk of losing or not
gaining those potential rating points. The list of legitimate grievances
could be, and will be, made larger and more diverse in days to come, as
more angles emerge.
Every single one of the substantive concerns
above, and the ones to emerge later, is serious and merits detailed
treatment. But that must involve according this list a particular degree
of credibility or seriousness that such lists otherwise deserve. On the
ground of bare fact alone, this list does not seem to hold up. It is
useful to ask why a given journal has been unfairly rejected only after
it has been ascertained that the list is talking about real journals.
There is a list of journals removed from the list because they have
ceased publication. They merit no consideration at all. But several, if
not many, journals mentioned in this list among those rejected on
grounds other than stoppage of publication simply does not exist, as
they are listed.
The submission is easy enough to test. Every
journal with a valid eight digit ISSN code can be tracked down in a
matter of a few seconds. Let us take a random sample. The Journal of the
Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies (entry 2531 in the list) has the
ISSN code 2047-1076. The code provided in the journal website and that
in the ISSN database match perfectly. In our list, however, the code is
2049-1076. The ISSN database offers nothing for that number. Let’s move
to the Proceedings of the Indian History Congress (entry 2543). Its ISSN
code is 22491937, according to the ISSN database. This list calls the
journal Indian History Congress Proceedings and says the ISSN number is
41097815. The latter number returns nothing from the ISSN database.
Bengal Past and Present (entry 640) has the ISSN code 00058807,
according to the ISSN database. The list finally gets it right, but
rejects it on the ‘primary criteria’ that the journal must have a
website with full postal and email address of the Chief Editor or other
editors, and that at least some of these addresses are verifiable
official addresses. That, in fact, is the non negotiable minimum
criteria for any journal to even be considered for approval. Without it,
no journal enters into the eight point criteria stage.
The
misnomer flaw list goes on. The Journal of Asiatic Society of
Bengal(entry 65) comes with ISSN 18321936 in the list. The ISSN database
has nothing for that number. Senior officials from The Asiatic Society,
Kolkata, inform that the journal by that name ceased to exist by the
early fifties. Their current journal is called The Journal of the
Asiatic Society. It is duly uploaded on the parent body website. In
fact, one is not clear which journal the list is talking about. Is it
the current journal of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata, which does not have
the ISSN listed in the list? Or is it the journal that had ceased
publication seventy years ago, which the list actually names, and for
which it shows a ISSN code which returns nothing from the ISSN database?
How on earth a journal which ceased publication in the fifties managed
to collect a ISSN code, is, of course, excellent material for wild
fiction. ISO 3297 system, the legal basis for ISSN numbers, came into
being in 2007, and later updated in 2017. Finally, the current Journal
of Asiatic Society has been found in the approved Journals list
There
was a scare that Economic and Political Weekly, the respected social
science journal from Mumbai, too was rejected. Fortunately, it was soon
enough found out that the ISSN code in the list (entry 3509) belongs to
the online version of the journal. The ISSN database too confirms it.
The print version, where thousands of landmark articles have been
published over half a century, carries the ISSN code 0012-9976 and is
safely listed in the CABABSTRACTS, GLOBALHEALTH and SCOPUS databases.
How
does one carry out a ISSN database search for close to 3,500 journals
and then match them with the list, within a day of having discovered the
scandal it is? Was not the grandiosely named Standing Committee
entrusted with that very job? Or is it lacking in expertise to carry out
a ISSN database search? The UGC must now brace itself for a thundering
diversity of dismissal from across many quarters. There is plenty of
turmoil ahead.
The writer is Junior Research Officer at
Educational Multimedia Research Centre, St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.
The opinion is exclusively his own.
Source : https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/ugc-removes-many-journals-from-approved-list-including-epw-online
