UGC Approved List of Journals in All Subjects 2018

[Dr. Badan Barman]

The recent notification from UGC under the heading Journals Removed from UGC-Approved List of Journals  says that "The UGC has received complaints about inclusion of poor-quality or questionable journals from faculty, researchers, other members of academic community as well as from press and media representatives. Considering these complaints, the Standing Committee on Notification of Journals re-evaluated every journal title recommended by universities as well as those indexed by Indian Citation Index on filtering criteria defined by the Standing Committee. Based on careful scrutiny and analysis, 4305 journals are removed from the current UGC-Approved List of Journals because of poor quality / incorrect / insufficient information/ false claims."

The list of journals removed from approved list is available at https://www.ugc.ac.in/journallist/4305_Journals.pdf

In addition to these journals, 191 titles covered in Indian Citation Index are pending for evaluation by the Standing Committee on Notification of Journals. The list of 191 journals pending for evaluation is available at https://www.ugc.ac.in/journallist/191_Journals.pdf

Read our earlier forum post on the same issue available at the following URL. This forum post is the highest visited forum post at the LIS Links website.

http://www.lislinks.com/forum/topics/ugc-approved-list-of-journals

[Munesh Kumar]

As per my understanding, "UGC must listen to all the complaints raised against these dropped journals and also provide the opportunity to prove their points instead of directly blocking them".

The quality of journals can't be measured only by Good language; 'though content" and scopes are important.  

Thank you.  

 

[Tanmay Saha]

Why the ISSN number provided if Journals are not satisfied or qualitative performance? If any Journals has the qualitative questions why the journals are continuous publishing their Issues. It's very harmful to Country and next-generation learner. Govt or UGC Should make a policy to stop such kind of Publications. 

UGC Providing Inclusion and Exclusion notice day by day. Is the solution to stop such kind of journals?

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Thanks Sri Tanmoy Saha for your post and your concern about the quality of journals in UGC list. Actually, the ISSN is issued by National Science Library for NISCAIR. They have a prescribed format and if the concerned journal completes the format successfully, they get the ISSN. Unfortunately, they have little role in verifying the quality. (just like the RRRLF issuing ISBNs) some times, the journal authority hide the truth and get away with ISSN. Never-the-less, there was a boom of journal publishing all over India!!

As I observed with the issuance of UGC's mandate to link up promotion with publications, overnight most of the institutions under UGC started publishing their own journal and participate in conferences by paying Regn. fees.  I personally know at least 50 College Librarians & 10 College Teachers who have 0 to 2 publications on first 10 years of their service/ before the UGC's mandate came into effect. And surprisingly within next 4/5 years they were armed with  4/5 publications and at least 3 certificates of conference participation!! It is quite confusing as to  how an individual who was barren for more than a decade suddenly becomes so fertile!! There is another trend & it is publishing edited volumes. Simply individually, a number of them (not all, of course!) are incapable to write a whole book by themselves but for the lure to score higher points, they opt for edited volumes. I might have shifted from the core issue, but I had to in order to explain the very primary reasons!!

As I understand, the UGC has panels of subject experts to select journals on different subjects. Since these journals are infiltrated, I personally feel that the panel experts might not got opportunity to check the journals thoroughly!.   

To conclude, as Sri Munesh Kumar mentioned, the journals may be asked to explain the issues & failing which their approvals to be cancelled instantly and the editors & Publishers are blacklisted. I am extremely confident that as soon as the journals are excluded from the list from their very first issue & the publishers & editors are blacklisted (so that the authors can not claim any point for publication in any of these journals, on the contrary, it may create negative impression/marking for publications in these journals), eventually, the authors will stop contributing papers in those journals and the journals will cease to exist.

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

[Munesh Kumar]

Thank you for the enlightening words/remarks, Sir.

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

Dear Dr. Barman,

 Thanks for your post.

The issue attracts universal attention!

The May 2018 issue (#65) of "ISSN Newsletter" highlights  this issue quoting a report appeared in the daily newspaper National Herald. As a concluding remark they have mentioned that "...the ISSN plays a central role..." (in selection process of journals)

As such, the authority should be more selective and restrictive in issuing ISSNs and never-the-less, the selecting committee  members may be given certain number of journals to check & verify the standard and contents of the articles. Besides, the editorial boards of the journals should be more proactive in checking the quality and standard of the papers before acceptance. I have excluded the issue of plagiarism as a deliberate effort because the authors submit a declaration in this respect during submission of the papers and financially it is not affordable by many Non Commercial Publishers (especially those like IASLIC in India) to buy such anti-plagiarism software. However, like many leading International journals, if they receive any complain with proofs, they should highlight the matter in their next successive three issues citing the full reference & Author(s)' affiliations!! Additionally, they should make it clear in their "Terms of Acceptance"  that they hold the legal autonomy to inform the authors' institutions about such incidents. I am confident that if these steps are taken, not only it will be a safeguard for the journal authorities, but also it will result in reducing foul play by a section of contributors. Since India is one among the top Fifteen publishing countries in the World, ensuring quality and authenticity of publications from India needs to be highlighted as a mission.

Sincerely,

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta