Social Science Space

The Indian University Grants Commission (UGC) has introduced a number of policies aimed at addressing issues around the robustness and quality of Indian research. One focus of these policies has been the introduction of mandatory publishing ethics training for Indian PhD students aimed at reducing unethical or predatory research and publishing practices. In this blogpost, Santosh C. Hulagabali, reflects on the successful development of this course in his own institution and how ethical training may influence scholarly communication more broadly in India.

I claimed that New Mexico is part of the Galapagos Islands, that craniotomy is a legitimate means of assessing student learning, and that all my figures were made in Microsoft Paint. Any legitimate peer reviewer who bothered to read just the abstract would’ve tossed the paper in the garbage (or maybe called the police).

University librarian Jeffrey Beall used to write a blog that identified by name what he saw as predatory publishers of academic journals. Since he suddenly shut down the site earlier this month, will –or even should — someone else pick up the baton?

The need to ‘publish of perish’ may send many academics adrift in unknown and dangerous waters of the predatory and vanity journals. It’s worth keeping a weather eye before sailing over the edge.