Published articles in 4305 ‘Removed Journals’ can be considered for career advancement; journal’s revival possible: UGC

NEW DELHI, MAY 10: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has come out in defence of the Standing Committee decision which removed 4305 journals, which termed them ‘Predatory’ and of ‘Poor Quality’ even as the statutory body kept options open for conditional acceptance of the articles in such journals for career advancement.

As per the UGC clarification, the articles published in these journals till May 2 may be considered for career advancement. It has also clarified that removed journals do not necessarily indicate that it is of poor quality, but it may also ‘due to non-availability of information’.   

The UGC on May 2 had come up with the list of 4305 journals which were removed from its list of approved journals, including 203 ICI journals. The UGC claimed that action was taken after it received repeated complaints about the inclusion of fake, questionable or predatory journals from research scholars, students as well as from the academic fraternity.

However, as per the UGC, the removed journals might be considered for re-inclusion once they fulfil these basic criteria and are re-recommended by universities. The Apex higher education regulatory body in its clarification says, “The UGC would also like to clarify that 4,305 journals which have been removed on 2nd May 2018 were UGC-approved journals till that date and, as such, articles published/accepted in them prior to 2nd May 2018 by applicants for recruitment/promotion may be considered and given points accordingly by universities.”

The UGC has been facing severe criticism for removal of some old and reputed journals. Many senior academicians, speaking to Careers360, have also questioned the manner in which these journals were removed from the list. Thus clarifying its stand, UGC says, “The Standing Committee reiterates that removal/non-inclusion of a journal does not necessarily indicate that it is of poor quality, but it may also be due to non-availability of information such as details of editorial board, indexing information, year of its commencement, frequency and regularity of its publication schedule, etc.”  

As per the UGC, the UGC List of Journals is a dynamic list which is revised periodically. Initially, the list contained only journals included in Scopus, Web of Science, and Indian Citation Index. The list was expanded to include recommendations from the academic community. The UGC portal was opened twice in 2017 to universities to upload their recommendations based on filtering criteria available at https://www.ugc.ac.in/journallist/methodology.pdf.

The articles published in UGC-approved List of Journals are considered for recruitment, promotion and career advancement not only in universities and colleges but also other institutions of higher education in India. As such, it is the responsibility of UGC to curate its list of approved journals and to ensure that it contains only high-quality journals.

While removing many journals from its list, the Commission had cited poor quality and many other other reasons including non-compliance regarding address details of journal editor.  “The Standing Committee on Notification on Journals removed many poor quality/predatory/questionable journals from the list between 25th May 2017 and 19th September 2017. This is an ongoing process and since then the Committee has screened all the journals recommended by universities and also those listed in the ICI, which were re-evaluated and re-scored on filtering criteria defined by the Standing Committee.”

It states that based on careful scrutiny and analysis, 4,305 journals were removed from the current UGC-Approved List of Journals on 2nd May, 2018 because of poor quality/incorrect or insufficient information/false claims.

As per the UGC, having a dedicated website for journals is one of the primary criteria for inclusion of journals. The websites should provide full postal addresses, e-mail addresses of chief editor and editors, and at least some of these addresses ought to be verifiable official addresses.

Some of the established journals recommended by universities that did not have dedicated websites or websites that have not been updated, might have been dropped from the approved list as of now.

The UGC’s Standing Committee on Notification on Journals has also decided that the recommendation portal will be opened once every year for universities to recommend journals. However, from this year onwards, every recommendation submitted by the universities will be reviewed under the supervision of Standing Committee on Notification of Journals to ascertain that only good-quality journals, with correct publication details, are included in the UGC-approved List.