Page 23 - Academic and Research Book_WEB

and often varyingly unethical, demands on the way research is conducted, and data generated and
compiled for publication. Such practices lead to loss of integrity in the conduct of research and/or
unethical practices in dissemination of results. Consequently, the methodological quality of scientific
experiments does not increase with increasing rank of the journal. On the contrary, an accumulating
body of evidence suggests the inverse: methodological quality and, consequently, reliability of
published research works in several fields may be decreasing with increasing journal rank” (Brembs,
2018). In addition, many of the high-impact journals collect money from authors or their funders
on various counts, including the open-access charges, resulting in the research publication industry
becoming an increasingly profitable and competitive business.
Despite the very wide discussion that establishes the misuse and inadequacy of the JIF as a
bibliometric indicator (Lakhotia, 2011, 2014; DORA, 2012; Schmid, 2017; Chaddah and Lakhotia,
2018), it continues to rule the roost and influence research practices. The undue emphasis on
publication in so-called high impact factor journals has also left the research journals published
in India (often categorized as ‘national journals’), including even those published by established
academies and universities in the country, in a poor state (Lakhotia, 2018). It is indeed unethical
to distinguish between ‘national’ and ‘international’ journals for the assessment of individuals and
institutions (Lakhotia, 2013; Chaddah and Lakhotia, 2018).

One of the glaringly unethical consequence of the transformation of research publication from an
academic activity carried out primarily by academic institutions, learned societies and the like, to a
hugely profit-making commercial activity is the mushrooming of predatory or greatly sub-standard
journals during the past decade or so (Beall, 2012; Lakhotia, 2015, 2017b; Moore 2020).

Poor infrastructure for research in universities and colleges: Universities and colleges, as institutions
of higher education, have the dual responsibility of disseminating knowledge to the learners and of
creating new knowledge through research. The latter activity is especially more relevant for university
faculty. Creative and original research needs an appropriate and “conducive environment”, and
adequate infrastructure. Unfortunately, most universities and colleges have neither the “conducive
environment” nor the minimally-needed infrastructure. Yet the faculty is required to engage in
research and get evaluated on the basis of published output. Such conditions would indeed encourage
unethical practices since the requirements are unrealistic (Lakhotia, 2017a, b).
Emphasis on quantity rather than quality: The increasingly competitive organized research demands
relative evaluation of research output of individuals and academic institutions for recognition,
rewards, funding, and so on, bringing in its wake the “publish or perish” syndrome across the globe.
With institutional requirements of certain minimal number of research publications for eligibility and
calculation of the academic performance index (API) for inter se comparisons, the rush for research
publications has become more demanding. As a consequence, the predatory journals appeared and are
flourishing (Biele, 2012; Lakhotia, 2015; 2017a, b; Patwardhan, et al., 2018; Panda, 2020The predatory
journals have now been joined by predatory conferences and online webinars, and predatory prep-
print servers. The sub-standard publication industry has also ‘evolved’ during the past few years so
that the perpetrators successfully hoodwink the surveillance mechanisms put in place by various
agencies (Grudniewicz, et al., 2019; Jain and Singh, 2019) and continue their money-making research
publication business because their ‘prey’, a large number of researchers remain in disparate need of
some ‘publications’ to their credit so that they can fulfil the institutional requirements (Moore, 2020).

These and other factors have catalysed an increasing tendency for breach of research integrity and
unethical practices in the conduct of research, interpretation of data, and dissemination of the
research output. These practices have also been abetted by the increasing availability and usages of
internet, automation and software for word- and image-processing.

12 | University Grants Commission