Unfortunately the last two contributions do not address the central ethical question raised by earlier respondents, namely that asking someone to pay money ahead of their paper being reviewed is unethical, improper, and pollutes (I don't want to use the word "compromise") the entire process. It does not matter what the N5,000 is deployed for. First, the idea of paying someone to review a journal article, a task usually performed voluntarily in service of the profession and of knowledge, raises ethical questions. Second, the explanation that reviewers are mature enough to not feel a sense of obligation towards the authors may be true in some cases, but it is on the whole less than convincing. Unless the reviewers are angels in human disguise, being paid for the review will tug at their proverbial heartstrings a bit, causing them to give the papers before them a more sympathetic and favorable hearing than they would otherwise do. Charging a production fee at the backend of the review process is fine, giving the constraints of publishing in the developing world, but a journal that wants to be taken seriously cannot 1) be paying reviewers money to review its submissions, and 2) cannot ask those who submit articles to pay a review or handling fee upfront. If the practice of paying reviewers is central to the journal's survival, and the case has not been made that it is, have the journal's editors thought of using some funds within their department(s) or institution to fund this expense, or asking for voluntary contributions through professional associations or even on forums like the USAfricaDialogue?
On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 2:20 AM, Femi Segun <soloruntoba@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for all your responses on this critical and pertinent issue. Indeed, I concur with Prof Okey Iheduru on the worrisome trend of self publications and the challenges of getting funding for Journal publications in Nigerian Universities. . However, in the particular case of this Unilag Journal of Politics, the articles are blind peer-reviewed. Asking people to pay at the point of submission is to ensure that reviewers are motivated (or incentivised) to return the paper on time. From my experience as a member of Faculty in the Department of Political Science at Unilag, such advanced payments have not in any way affected the decisions of the Editorial Board on whether or not to accept the papers for publication. Indeed, it has happened (even recently) that papers submitted by colleagues in the Department were turned down for not meeting the standard (based on comments from reviewers). Of course such colleagues may rework their papers and get it published elsewhere.The need to have standard on which journals to be accepted for promotion should be based cannot be over-emphasised. I think NUC should be involved in this by identifying journals, which will be subjected to certain standards before being accredited. The issue of indexing and citation that Prof. Okey mentioned are also essential. If knowledge production is to be meaningful, it must be accessible to the universe of academia, policy makers and other end users. The whole essence of scholarship is defeated and undermined if our research and writings are just meant for promotion.In South Africa, there are lists of accredited journals. It is only publications that appear in these journals that are considered for promotion or any other benefits. The respective universities pay Faculty members who get their papers published in accredited journals.I should think issues like these should be included in the on-going ASUU -FG negotiationsSamuel O OloruntobaPost-Doctoral FellowThabo Mbeki African Leadership InstituteUniversity of South Africa, Pretoria.South Africa..--On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 11:57 AM, okey iheduru <okeyiheduru@gmail.com> wrote:Okey Iheduru.I just completed a 2-year sabbatical/Fulbright Fellowship LEADS Fellowship at the National Defense College, Abuja in Nigeria during which I participated in six (6) National Universities Commission (NUC) program accreditation visits to one federal, two state and three private universities for Political Science and International Relations, Economics and Sociology.Regards,
I learned a lot about the opportunities and challenges of university education in Nigeria. I'll never forget many of the exceptionally brilliant students my panels and i interacted with as part of our assignment. Some economics departments have advanced electronic labs for their formal modelling/econometrics courses, while some programs have easily accessible subscriptions to various research databases for their electronic libraries. When time permits, I'll do a proper write-up on my experiences, more broadly.
I would like here to respond to the "Call for Papers" from Unilag that asked prospective authors to also send money. During the accreditation visits (which are really meticulous and rigorous--I hope Oga Ikide is reading this!), I found that while quite a number of colleagues are doing serious scholarship, the overwhelming percentage is engaged in what you call "Vanity" journal (and book) publishing. Every department--100 PERCENT--that we evaluated had its own "journal" which is "edited" in-house. Thereafter the authors literally put a gun on the head of administrators to count those "publications" as part of the percentage of scholarship that can be locally published. Even Colleges of Education and Polytechnics have departmental journals in Nigeria--there was a CFP from one of them on this list recently.
None of these "journals" is indexed, either locally or internationally; so, colleagues who live/work five kilometres away from the institutions may not even know that such publications exist. Some institutions have been posting some of their publications online to give them visibility and possibly generate citation counts. There are claims (I have no proof; it wasn't my charge) that some of the articles are plagiarized or may even be exact copies of papers published elsewhere with a new author and institutional affiliation.
Sadly, there is no nation-wide outlet to present, publish and/or professionally review recent work in the fields I evaluated since, for instance, the once-famous Nigerian Political Science Association and its journal died following the zoning of its leadership to the North who must have their "turn" at leading the association. A similar fate has befallen many scholarly groups--the Historical Society of Nigeria seems to be one of the few exceptions. Asked why these colleagues shouldn't be reading and/or publishing in outlets put out by older institutions with seasoned academics with more credible track record, I was hushed down with: "Why should we be reading their own? Why can't they read our own [journals]?" A PhD is a PhD, I was told, even if it's awarded by a two-year old caricature of what others know as a university!
It's worth noting that in one state university we visited, of the nine (9) lecturers on the Sociology faculty, six (6) obtained their PhDs (as well as their BSc and MSc degrees) from the same department! Not only do you smell "in-breeding",you can assume they were also taught and mentored by senior colleagues who rose through the ranks based on publications in departmental journals. Indeed, many colleagues on the Deans and VC ranks today cut their academic teeth in the "Volume 1, Number 1" syndrome of the 1990s and early 2000s. It's worth noting, though, that no more than 68 percent of faculty in all Nigerian Universities have doctorates; not easy to produce one, really.
It was amusing to find senior lecturers, associate professors/readers and even full professors with 50-100 "scholarly papers" almost 9/10 of which appear in these in-house and other publications. I'm not making any judgement regarding the quality of these publications since I have not read them. Yet, I find the culture very worrisome. Sometimes "books" (especially edited volumes) are published without a clear reason why such a "scholarly book" should be published. I earned some reputation as a snub whenever I explained my inability to honor "Prof, can you please contribute a chapter for my book" requests.
Many of these colleagues with very long list of "scholarly papers" have fewer than five (5) citation counts on Google Scholar, if at all they do. Of course, many of us Diaspora academics have relatively very little citation counts, never mind the amount of noise we make all the time on this list. It must be stated that, as at this point, the NUC has not taken up the responsibility to regulate this aspect of academic quality--not sure it should. What are department heads, deans, Senate and vice chancellors supposed to do?
From our Diaspora stand point, many of these publications are clearly "Vanity" journals and books, but the reality is that it costs a lot of money to publish them. Cash-trapped departments, faculties and/or universities have more weighty priorities. Perhaps, a much better write-up could have been on ideas/strategies to help these colleagues to get out of these morass--many of them teach 3-4 courses of 200-500 students a semester without TAs and get as small as N10,000 a year for academic conference presentations. Any ideas?--On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 8:56 AM, D Foreal <forealng@yahoo.com> wrote:This is a cash and carry journal. Any right thinking academic should avoid this journal. It is a vanity journal as in vanity press.From: franklyne ogbunwezeh <ogbunwezeh@yahoo.com>
To:"usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - UNILAG Journal of Politics: CALL FOR PAPERSYou guys are funny! I should send money alongside my paper. This si really crazy.
Thanks no thanks.
Franklyne Ogbunwezeh* ************** *************** ****************** *************** ***********
What constitutes a disservice to our faculty of judgment, however, is to place obstacles in the way of assembling truth's fragments, remaining content with a mere one- or two-dimensional projection where a multidimensional and multifaceted apprehension remains open, accessible and instructive.Wole Soyinka, Between Truth and IndulgencesFrom: Dele Ashiru <ashirudele@yahoo.co.uk>
To:"usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 7:34 PM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - UNILAG Journal of Politics: CALL FOR PAPERS--Dear All,Please respond appropriately.Best wishes'Dele Ashiru.
Department of Political Science,
University of Lagos,
Lagos,Nigeria.
+234-8026274712, +234-8019119573.
http//:www.politicalscienceunilag.org
http//:www.unilag.edu.ng
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Herbert Macaulay Way (North)
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