Gloria:
You're too respectable and too experienced in academia to descend to the level of innuendos and character-assassination. I'm sure you can do better than to suggest that your "neocons" nemesis have so run out of work that they must now earn their living worrying about the fraudulent academic culture in Nigeria. And, they value my opinion so much as to put me on their payroll? I'll drink to that!You know, I didn't realize how important you think I am!
Seriously, though, you know better than I do that this racket has gone on for over 25 years, and many in the generations of academics who have been socialized into it do not even realize how much of a problem it is. By bringing it up in this and other forums--along with so many voices out there who get clobbered like you tried to do to me--, I'm actually helping our colleagues back home-- sensitizing them to the challenges facing them if they truly want to be part of the 21st century university. We've proffered so many "ways forward" innumerable times. I spent my summer (June-July 2015) on the ground in Nigeria doing my small bit on the "practical" side of this problem, and I know how fun it was knocking on the brick wall most times.
No, the issue at stake has nothing to do with American neocons. No, it's NOT, "preferable that a bunch of Eurocentric males ( or females) from Mars should dictate what should be published and when." Serious scholarship published in Nigeria has always been respectable and have continued to garner enviable impact counts. A few contrasting examples here will suffice for now.
The total Google Scholar citation count for Unilag Journal of Politics is 54. This is a biannual (Rainy Season and Harmattan Season) publication, which calculates to about 22 issues averaging six articles per issue; or a total of about 132 articles, excluding book reviews, etc., since its debut (Volume 1, Number 1) in 2004. It's supposed to be among the "best" outlets for political science writing in Nigeria, mind you. Most of its peers range from 0 to 11 Google Scholar citation counts--and there are more than 50 such "journals" in Nigeria today!
On the other hand, the Google Scholar citation counts for these works published in Nigeria by Nigerian/West Africa academics (as of October 4th, 2015) should cheer you up a little:
(1) Okwudiba Nnoli, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria
(Enugu:
Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1978) -- a whopping 686!.
(NB: As you and I know, many full professors in social sciences and humanities in North American universities will never amass this number of citation counts [686] for ALL their scholarship until they retire👹👹👹).
(2) Eme O. Awa, Issues in Federalism (Benin City: Ethiope Publishing Corporation, 1976) = 69.
(3) Yusuf Bala Usman, Transformation of Katsine (1400-1883). (Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1981) = 51.
(4) Gabriel O. Olusanya, The Second World War and Politics in Nigeria, 1939-1953 (Ibadan: Evans Brothers Publishers Ltd. [for University of Lagos], 1973) = 75.
(5) Ayodeji Olukoju, The Crisis of Research and Academic Publishing in Nigerian Universities: The Twentieth Century and Beyond (Darkar: Proceedings of the 28th Annual Spring Symposium, 2002 - codesria.org) = 32.
Below is my source for the Unilag Journal of Politics Google Scholar citation counts as of October 4th, 2015.
[CITATION] IS POPOOLA
RP Violence - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2004 - … Political Science, University of Lagos
[CITATION] NDUBISI I. NWOKOMA
PP Power - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2004 - … Political Science, University of Lagos
[CITATION] Patriarchy and constraints of democratic political space of women in Nigeria
FA Badru - Unilag Journal of Politics, 2005
[CITATION] The Role of the Mass Media in Reducing Political Violence: A Case Study of the 2003 General Elections
IS Popoola - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2004
[CITATION] The State, Politics and Economy under the Obasanjo Government, 1999-2003
R Anifowose, D Seteolu - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2004
[CITATION] The state, politics and economy under Obasanjo
R Anifowose, D Seteolu - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2004
[CITATION] The Changing Context of Ethno-Nationalism in Nigeria
M Duruji - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2008
[CITATION] Executive-legislative relations in Nigeria's emerging presidential democracy
ER Aiyede - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2005
[CITATION] Electoral Malpractice and Violence in the 2003 General Elections in Nigeria
SC Ugoh - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2004
[CITATION] Towards Explaining the Conyinuing Dominance of Patrimonial Exchanges in State-Society Relations in Nigeria: The Relevance of Ethno-Patrimonial …
UB Ikpe - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2005
[CITATION] Constitution-making and constitutionalism in Nigeria's fourth republic (1999–2004): Issues and trends
SC Ugoh - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2005
[CITATION] Electoral Malpractices and Violence in 2003 Elections in Nigeria
SC Ugoh - Unilag Journal of Politics, 2004
[CITATION] The Al-Qaeda Scare and Africa capacity for the Discharge of Its Anti-terrorism Obligations
FA Agwu - UNILAG Journal of Politics, 2004
[CITATION] The Civil Limitations of Civil Society: Insights from Nigeria
SJ Omotola - Unilag Journal of Politics, 2005
Peace as always!
Okey
On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 2:18 PM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu> wrote:
'As I have noted in earlier postings in this Forum, TET Fund (the Nigerian Tertiary Education Trust Fund) actually finances this racket by doling out funds to pay for "departmental journals", article publication fees, and myriad spurious publications initiated by thieving cliques and gangs that make the NURTW (National Union of Road Transport Workers, or "agbero" in my dictionary) in Oyo State look like saints.'
Okey Iheduru
Why are some folks hell bent on defamation of organized labor? Are they closet neocons
paid by a bunch of employers - or what? The same people keep totally silent about the various atrocities on US
campuses and pretend that they are working in a crisis free campus environment in the US or the UK or wherever
they may be. Racial discrimination, campus shootings, sexual harassment, grade inflation, intimidation by students
and a host of issues that US administrators themselves admit to be rampant, are conveniently swept under the carpet.
I agree with Toyin that the TET Fund is a welcome program aimed at facilitating a renaissance in local
publishing. Is it preferable that a bunch of Eurocentric males ( or females) from Mars should dictate what should be published
and when?
Let us ask the right question. How can we assist in bringing about change so that the journals adhere to
a given standard.
I did not use the word 'international' deliberately. I recall an interesting perspective by Bala Usman
in one of our seminars at ABU, when he reminded us that this word "international" is often used to legitimize or
glorify two or three countries on the world map.
I have disagreed with Toyin Adepoju from time to time. I have also agreed with him on a few occasions. Here I agree with
him completely:
" but, where 'world class journals' invariably implies 'not in Africa' we need to ask qs about whose cognitive growth
is being fed by the research being sent abroad, whose educational ecosystem is being fed by the sustenance of these journals,
whose economy is being developed through these journals, whose students and staff are being trained and their prestige
boosted through the cultivation of the skills required to manage these journals, whose ideational framing of discourse,
whose theoretical structures are privileged through these journals........"
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Oluwatoyin Adepoju [toyinkaidara@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2015 6:28 AM
To: USAAfricaDialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - 'Predatory' Publishing Up; Nigeria Has the Highest Ratio -- 1,580 Percent!!!
My people,
As much as we must cry out about these issues, the subject needs to be placed in perspective so we may more readily maximise its significance.
I am worried about such sweeping critiques-
'There's hardly any ASUU official that is not guilty of this racket, either.'
Okey Iheduru
The qs is- how do you know?
How factual is this-
'Many of the "professors" sent by the NUC to conduct "resource verification" (before new programs are approved) and accreditation exercises are among the worst culprits of this academic fraud. There's hardly any ASUU official that is not guilty of this racket, either
Okey Iheduru
I wonder how such sweeping knowledge was reached.
I am struck by this-
'As I have noted in earlier postings in this Forum, TET Fund (the Nigerian Tertiary Education Trust Fund) actually finances this racket by doling out funds to pay for "departmental journals", article publication fees, and myriad spurious publications initiated by thieving cliques and gangs that make the NURTW (National Union of Road Transport Workers, or "agbero" in my dictionary) in Oyo State look like saints.'
Okey Iheduru
I find it gratifying that Nigeria has an education fund that actively funds academic publications.
The qs is- how may these funds be best used in this regard?
How may the indigenous publications supported by this fund be developed to the highest international standards?
What is perhaps the leading journal in the study of African literature, Research in African Literatures<http://www.jstor.org/journal/reseafrilite>, is described as started by Richard Bjornson with funding from the University of Texas<http://www.jstor.org/stable/3818964?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents>.
Sylvester Okwunedo Ogbechie<http://www.arthistory.ucsb.edu/faculty/ogbechie.html>, created and ran Critical Interventions<http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rcin20/1/1> journal of Art History at his AACHRON<http://www.aachron.com/index.html> online platform journal for years before it was taken over by Taylor and Francis.
Okwui Enwezor, with Chika Okeke Agulu and Olu Oguibe, created and ran Nka : Journal of Contemporary Art<http://www.nkajournal.org/> as a private initiative before it began to be published by Duke University<https://www.dukeupress.edu/Nka/>.
Rajat Neogy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajat_Neogy> created and ran the now legendary Transition<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Magazine> journal for years on a shoestring budget before it passed to Soyinka's editorship after which it folded up for lack of funds, to be revived decades later by Skip Gates and published by Indiana University Press.<http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/transition/transition-history>
A current drive in the West is towards academics' control of journals, away from control by the big publishers, as demonstrated by the Wikipedia essay on "Academic Journal Publishing Reform<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_journal_publishing_reform>", a move highlighted by the Elsevier boycott "The Cost of Knowledge<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge>" in which Timothy Gowers, Fields Medal winner [ Nobel Prize of mathematics] and professor at Oxford played a central role<https://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/>, an initiative that continues to reverberate<https://universonline.nl/2015/07/02/dutch-universities-start-their-elsevier-boycott-plan>.
A group of University of Cambridge academics have come together to create Open Book Publishers<http://www.openbookpublishers.com/section/14/1/about> a publishing house by academics for academics and the general public that bypasses the exploitative qualities of big publisher journal and book publication.
This drive towards academic autonomy in publishing hearkens to when Western academic publications were managed by academics, as with Edmund Halley, with the academic patronage of the Royal Society, publishing Isaac Newton's epochal Principia Mathematica, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Principia_Mathematica#Halley.27s_role_as_publisher>
In the light of these developments in decentralisation of academic publication away from a focus on high end brands controlled by publishing houses, how may scholars in Africa and other struggling continents adapt these initiatives?
Is the culture of 'do-it- yourself' academic publishing being decried in Nigeria something that should be done away with or refined?
Should these 'dept' journals not make themselves truly international by advertising globally and accepting submissions from the best globally?
I very much admire this-
'At the same time, we must acknowledge the valiant efforts of many Nigeria-based scholars who are getting published in world-class journals, in some cases, more than many of us in well-resourced overseas universities'
Okey Iheduru
but, where 'world class journals' invariably implies 'not in Africa' we need to ask qs about whose cognitive growth is being fed by the research being sent abroad, whose educational ecosystem is being fed by the sustenance of these journals, whose economy is being developed through these journals, whose students and staff are being trained and their prestige boosted through the cultivation of the skills required to manage these journals, whose ideational framing of discourse, whose theoretical structures are privileged through these journals, journals representing the same pool within which scholars in the countries where the journals are based are publishing, there being little or no need for scholars in the West to publish anywhere else, to the best of my knowledge
Are journals and academic publishers/publishing based in Africa not a desperate necessity if Africa is to achieve maturity in the world of organised knowledge?
The challenge is how to develop this to the highest standard.
thanks
toyin
On 2 October 2015 at 21:33, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu<mailto:emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu>> wrote:
Predatory publishing was pioneered by the established institutions in the UK and elsewhere
who started to charge money for publishing about a decade ago, I believe.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net<http://africahistory.net>
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos<http://vimeo.com/user5946750/videos>
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of Okey Iheduru [okeyiheduru@gmail.com<mailto:okeyiheduru@gmail.com>]
Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2015 4:00 PM
To: USAAfrica Dialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - 'Predatory' Publishing Up; Nigeria Has the Highest Ratio -- 1,580 Percent!!!
'Predatory' Publishing Up<http://insidehighered.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ed1d2ff123b6b83dd97022f88&id=b2cc9e3503&e=fd344a6e78>
Study suggests open-access journals with questionable peer-review and marketing processes now publish hundreds of thousands of articles a year, a huge jump in only a few years.
October 1, 2015
By
Carl Straumsheim<https://www.insidehighered.com/users/carl-straumsheim>
"The rise of open-access publishing, combined with pressure on academics to get published, has caused a spectacular increase in the number of articles spewed out by "predatory" journals, according to researchers at Finland's Hanken School of Economics. Such journals, of which there are thousands, charge authors hundreds of dollars in return for lackluster or nonexistent peer review and rapid publication...the journals dumped more than 420,000 articles into the market in 2014, up from 53,000 in 2010...Predatory publishers and journals are a byproduct of the open-access movement. In order to provide free access to readers, many journals have passed costs on to authors themselves, charging them an article-processing fee that can range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars...Authors from Africa and Asia appear most willing to take the risk. They make up 76.7 percent of the authors of the articles captured in the study. Authors from India alone make up more than one-third, or 34.7 percent...India's and China's populations obviously skew the geographic breakdown. When it comes to the number of articles per capita, another country comes out on top: Nigeria. The researchers calculated each country's ratio of articles published in predatory journals to those indexed in Thomson Reuters's Web of Science. Nigeria had the highest ratio -- 1,580 percent -- followed by India (277 percent), Iran (70 percent) and the U.S. (7 percent)...Research published in predatory journals is polluting the entire scholarly publishing ecosystem."
Note: The National Universities Commission (NUC) of Nigeria and other such higher ed administration and quality control agencies in Africa ought to take note and evaluate their options.
Now, read the entire article and comments here:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/10/01/study-finds-huge-increase-articles-published-predatory-journals?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=6ee00e91a1-DNU20151001&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-6ee00e91a1-197542281
'Predatory' Publishing Up
October 1, 2015
By
Carl Straumsheim<https://www.insidehighered.com/users/carl-straumsheim>
--
Okey Iheduru, PhD
[http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/banners/readmyarticle/rrip.gif]
You can access some of my papers on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/author=2131462.
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