Where LIS Professionals are Heading in Research

[Priyanka]

Hello all,

I am Priyanka, currently pursuing my research at the Dept. of Information Management, CYUT, Taiwan.
It feels good that the new normal has not lowered our zeal for contributing knowledge and pushing the existing boundary of literature.

However, a concern that is worth sharing has emerged in the past few years. To the best of my observation, it has been evident that the Indian research articles/papers from LIS research are continuously losing their visibility regarding the international standard of acceptance and variability of readership. Professionals are undermining the potential of the LIS researchers' contribution, given that seminal researches are unanimously accepted by highly reputed journals indexed in ABS / ABDC / CNRS / FNEGE ranking lists in different domains.

More specifically, if we talk about bibliometrics / Scientometrics publications conducted by researchers from other domain have high visibility because we, LIS professionals/researchers, lose out on relevant topics which has the international acceptance.

One way to conquer this digital space is to focus the journals of international repute rather than solely depending upon national/domestic indexing. Even though if that's the mandatory condition, researchers can make their way outs by identifying those specific journals (might be limited in numbers) but still find their credibility in the list of international repute.

In the end, it gives me so much anxiety after seeing that people from other domains are leveraging our tools and methodologies while producing a few of the most cited publications in the past few years without even understanding the functionality of our profession.

If we share the same sentiments, let us use this forum to discuss the constraints we, as LIS researchers, face while escalating our collective opinions.

Let's open up for a discussion!

Best,

Priyanka

[Vineet Jamwal]

Contributing to knowledge is okay. But absence of application based research is a pivotal drawback for limited reach of LIS published content. 

[Saba Sarasvdy]

Hi Priyanka

Your observations about the level and standards of LIS research in India are significant. A very large number of papers (more than 99%) in Scientometrics are marred by poor writing, language errors, absence of novelty and originality. They are characterized by stereotyped studies and affected by concept plagiarism. The basic reason is the poor standard of teaching in Indian LIS schools. Many faculty members do not have even a single paper in the WoS indexed journals. Indian LIS papers are not cited at the international level. LIS researchers do not like to learn good research. You cannot find any seminal paper from LIS people in India. 

[Saba Sarasvdy]

Hi Vineet Jamwal

Please read your reply yourself. What do you mean? ".......a pivotal drawback for limited reach of LIS published content....... "' Please explain the meaning of the sentence!

[Vineet Jamwal]

Hi Saba,

How can you pinpoint the discourse of "99 percent bad scientometrics"? Have you gathered any proof? Since you're a member of this elite group, you should strive to back up your claims with references rather than using fiction to distort the readers' perceptions. Also, how can you demonstrate that the features of Indian published LIS research material are stereotypical and that a content gap exists? Have you noticed how much Indian LIS research is published in top quarter journals? They are substantial, if not massive! Isn't it, however, sufficient? In India, Faculty members must demonstrate a consistent record of strong academic achievement, which we refer to as the Academic Performance Index, in order to be considered for a faculty post. What proof do you have to back up your assertion that many professors have yet to produce a single WoS-indexed paper? Perhaps you're not aware that Indian papers are often cited across the world, and that Indian scholars have a diverse range of teaching and research interests. There are a few roadblocks, such as the fact that, as I previously stated in my answer to his post, the research published by LIS specialists in India is more theoretical than statistical-application based. There might be a variety of other other factors too responsible for this. But application-based research that is novel in terms of applicability must be published. That is my personal point of view. As according to Scopus, the Editor-in-Chief of the world's No. 1 Q1 Journal in Library and Information Science is an Indian origin. Forget about a classic work; we've given the top editor.  And, I encourage you, try to reduce your general dissatisfaction with the LIS community's published research in India and provide facts on how to improve. If you truly desire this to occur.

[Saba Sarasvdy]

I argue that most of the Scientometrics research in India stands at a very lower level. In terms of Scientoemetrics productivity, the Indian LIS group generate a very large no of papers. In terms of impact, it is much lower. This has been proved in many forums. You can simply see the citations score of Indian papers and international papers. Even on 'google scholar', you can easily find it. There is no need for any mirror when we have a wound in our palm. How many Indian LIS papers have received more than 100 citations? What is the h index of LIS people? What is the size of the Indian LIS research groups and what is the total citations they have received? No Indian has won the de Solla Price Award in Scientometrics. You can look at these facts and discuss the quality issues.

[Priyanka]

It is not about degrading or disrespecting our profession. We should be thinking, how can we create an environment of creative and application research. There are drawbacks that we are seeing, if not 99% but at least to some extent. But what’s the way forward? Discussion is meant to produce positive and motivating outputs.

I understand the dissatisfaction and the hopelessness, but I do somewhat agree with Mr. Jamwal too. 
The purpose to initiate a discussion is to promote a positive dialog for good research outcomes and how to pave a way forward. 

[Priyanka]

Thanks Mr. Jamwal for carrying forward the discussion. The dissatisfaction of the fellow professionals is understood. However, the intention of discussion is definitely to promote the facts for improving our research environment and not disrespect our profession. Having chief editor in top journal or few high impact publications is definitely a source of inspiration for the professionals, but to sustain that inspiration and motivation, we need the supportive environment. How do we as professionals / educators proceed towards building such sustainable environment? The original intention of my post is not to pinpoint the drawbacks of our research output, but to create a discussion on how to improve upon the existing drawbacks? Everyone is under pressure to publish to gain their respective performance points, be it educators or researchers, but how to sustain the quality amidst that pressure or so to say competition? 

[Vineet Jamwal]

I think researchers like you can provide better highlights over this who are having publications in JoI etc.