It is no wonder that everybody wants to see his/her name printed on a white page. The noted Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov in his essay, “Speak, Memory” confessed, “I have rewritten—often several times—every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.” British writer J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was rejected by twelve different publishers before Bloomsbury Publishing finally accepted it in 1996.

Now-a-days, any manuscript on any topic under the sun can be published within a month, irrespective of quality. To become an author or an editor is no crime, rather it is a noble task but the kind of publications (both print and digital) that are overcrowding the bookshelves and online journals/platforms often throw the sensitive reader/writer into deep mental turmoil. The situation turns grave when most people in academia (mostly in higher education) go on publication spree.

According to India’s University Grants Commission (UGC) mandate, each college/university teacher must publish research papers, book chapters, books, and edited books to avail the benefits of the Career Advancement Scheme (CAS).

This article is going to shed light on the malpractices of teachers, dubious journals, and publication houses. It is to be mentioned that the UGC-CARE (Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics) list of journals was introduced in November 2018 by UGC. It was established to replace the previous UGC Approved List of Journals and to improve the quality of research by curbing predatory, fraudulent, and low-quality academic publishing that had escalated in India.   Although announced in 2018, the official UGC-CARE Reference List of Quality Journals came into effect for academic purposes on June 14, 2019. This list replaced the previous “UGC Approved List of Journals,” which arguably contained over 88% of predatory journals. Nonetheless, the purpose was good. However, malpractices are bound to happen in Indian academia. Some journals were misfits in the first UGC-CARE list issued by UGC. They deleted spurious journals and issued another list. This cumbersome process continued for five years, with each revised list coming every year. Academicians were flabbergasted as to whether the journals that published their articles earlier were in the revised list. 

Now, this article is going to shed some light on the fate of the journals that were previously on UGC-CARE list, and were deleted in later revised lists. The problem is that some genuine journals that strove to retain quality were deleted in the later versions of the list and some journals that should have been discarded were included in the list. I am referring to some print journals (without naming those) that used to be published monthly and each issue used to carry at least 70-80 articles. The most ludicrous thing I noticed was that in a particular issue, I found six research papers co-authored by a particular Ph. D supervising academic, each with a research scholar. I went through one or two papers, and I found innumerable mistakes. This is only because these journals could not undertake peer-reviewing process and the articles were published by transferring money, oftentimes in the name of Article Processing Charges (APC) or by subscribing to the journals for 1/2 years. The same is true for some online journals that do not pay attention to any quality; they only care for APC, so that each issue carries even 100 articles because money talks.

The UGC also clarified that research papers published in journals that were on the previous UGC-CARE list need not worry because they could claim it by obtaining it from the editor of the journal that was on the previous list, mentioning the serial number. However, this again became an arduous task for academicians. They were bothered as the interview boards were giving more importance to publications in UGC-CARE journals. However, the UGC was gave the same weightage (2 for each publication for the post of Assistant Professor) to publications in the UGC-CARE and other refereed journals/blind double peer-reviewed journals. Academicians kept asking their fellow academicians about the latest UGC-CARE list through WhatsApp/Telegram chats. When UGC realized that the UGC-CARE list was not a bulletproof jacket for predatory/sub-standard journals, they decided to discontinue the list entirely in October, 2024. From then on the only thing that matters is ISSN in a journal. Two years ago, for the same reason, the UGC, as per “Minimum Standards and Procedures for Award of Ph.D. Degree Regulations, 2022” decided to do away with the minimum criteria for a research scholar to publish two research papers in peer-reviewed journals before the submission of the thesis. Another reason cited by the UGC ‘reducing pressure on students,’ is understandable.

Scopus (derived from the Latin term ‘skopos’, meaning “purpose,” highlighting its function as a comprehensive database for research) was officially launched in late 2004 by the reputed Dutch academic publishing company, viz., Elsevier, but some ghosts entered the Scopus-index too over the years. While most of the journals in Scopus-index seem to be genuine, some predatory or spurious journals have made their foray into the index. At this juncture, it is very difficult to isolate a good journal from a bad one. A reliable and genuine journal (be it print or online, Scopus-listed or peer-reviewed) does not usually charge any kind of fee in the name of APC. The cost of these journals is borne either by a society, or an institution or a generous individual. While genuine Scopus-indexed journals do not charge authors any fees, some journals under the same giant umbrella ask for 1000 USD in the name of APC.

The dream of getting published in a Scopus-indexed journal was already embedded in the minds of the Indian (and beyond) academicians. They cannot repress their urges to be in the so-called elite list of authors. Therefore, some academics go to interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary journals to get published but as it is very onerous for one to bear the payment of $1000 (the amount may vary from journal to journal), some 6-8 authors co-write a paper, equally dividing the APC. This is the most common and deplorable practice today. A fundamental science-related article by six authors can be justified but a Humanities paper by six or eight authors is a very bitter pill to digest. That is why we see a Science teacher co-authoring a Scopus-indexed research paper on topics like women’s literacy in hill areas, and a Humanities teacher writing a research paper on medicinal plants. It is no crime for an author to write a paper in an interdisciplinary field rather it is his/her versatility but most often they do not do it ethically and seriously. I noticed one or two such publications in Scopus-indexed journals. In the “Abstract” of a research paper, I noticed five syntactical/grammatical errors and I did not bother to read the entire paper. This has led some academics to suspect malpractice in the academic arena. Nevertheless, these authors flaunt their chests, claiming to have published in a Scopus-indexed journal.

These kinds of sub-standard publications (even in Scopus-indexed journals) are total electronic waste. Another drama is that some agencies of dubious Scopus-indexed journals/print publications collect the contact numbers of teachers of colleges/universities from their official websites and call them. They often ask for a huge amount of money to publish someone in Scopus-indexed journals. A huge racket of publications is ongoing in India. I once received a phone call from someone claiming to be from a publishing house, asking me if I was eager to publish. She went on telling me that I would have to pay more or less fifty thousand rupees to get a paper published in a Scopus-indexed online journal. She even assured me that they would publish it in any back issue of a Scopus-indexed online journal, as per my wish. These maladies are likely to persist for years to come. On the other hand, some excellent journals such as The Journal of the School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), have not found their place in the Scopus-index. For this kind of discrepancy, some serious scholars do not bother about the idea of Scopus at all. There is no denying the fact that most teachers of IITs, NITs, IISCs, and other premier institutions, on a regular basis, publish their articles in genuine Scopus-indexed journals. Therefore, the onus is on the authors to choose the right kind of journal and give priority to quality rather than quantity. Another adverse impact of online publication of too much bad-quality research papers on the websites of the e-journals is that if someone prompts an AI app or an AI platform for some replies, AI would generate some doubtful or inauthentic answers as generative AI only gives reply only from the already-existing databases. 

Questionable print publications are a real hazard for the environment as many trees are felled for them. Now, at the cost of ten thousand rupees, any small-scale publishing house is ready to publish anything, obviously after obtaining an ISBN, the only thing that most of the academicians bother about. I also came across edited books that contained some “Abstracts” of papers, not the full papers either because the authors either did not find time to write or could not continue. The editor had to include those among thirty other senseless chapters (full of mistakes, without any head or tail, or even not at all related to the name of the book) because the authors had already paid the production cost of more or less one thousand rupees. This may sound unbelievable, but this is a glaring fact. Now-a-days, many a sizable number of academicians publish edited books like machines, including thirty to forty chapters (though in extreme cases I noticed more than hundred chapters), because they love to spend money and the publishers love to earn money. Some academics also publish their chapters in such books to bolster their Academic Performance Index (API). The so-called editors of such books do not edit the chapters at all, let alone check for plagiarism.

Thus, the entire academic publication industry in India is murky. Similar to UGC-CARE or Scopus-index, this International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)/International Standard Book Number (ISBN) label is not a touchstone to assess the quality of an article. The agencies that issue these numbers are not credible enough. I even received phone calls and WhatsApp messages to be one of the multiple authors/editors of a completed book/edited book by paying five thousand rupees or be an author of a chapter in a book by paying five thousand rupees if I send them an article written by me or ten to twenty thousand rupees if I do not write anything as it would be written by some ghost writer or some machine. Some academics fall prey to such traps. It is not that they do not get published for promotion but the process is totally unethical.

There are many good and high-quality journals/magazines that do not have an ISSN but there are some sub-standard journals that have been allotted an ISSN. Most authors only need an ISSN for their publications. Who to blame for this? No agency or commission is to be blamed for academic spuriousness, in a vast country like India, it is almost impossible to screen everything. It is time to see if the UGC decides (like the previous two decisions) to do away with the minimum criteria of publication for the sake of a Higher Education teacher’s promotion. Ultimately, the fault lies with us: it is high time we introspected.