'VCs responsible for recommending fake journals'

The HRD Ministry said that vice-chancellors of central, state and deemed universities would be held responsible if any substandard/predatory journals were found in the list of academic journals recommended by the institute.

On Monday, the government has asked all universities to review the list of academic journals recommended by them by August 30, amid concerns that many publish papers for a charge.

“If any substandard/ predatory journals are found to be in the list recommended by the vice-chancellors, that would be held personally against the vice-chancellor concerned,” an official order issued by the Ministry said.

“They (VC) may be asked to redo the exercise if necessary and send a certificate to UGC before 31st August, 2018, that all the journals which are in their database are genuine peer-reviewed and are of required standards,” the order added.

The issue of fake journals also cropped up in Parliament this week when HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had informed the Lok Sabha that the UGC has addressed the problem of "predatory and sub-standard" journals claiming to publish scholarly articles.

Against the backdrop of media reports that there are many academic journals that publish articles for a charge, Javadekar said on Monday, "we don't want any predatory journals".

According to the minister, the Standing Committee of the UGC on notification of journals has been constituted which, after due verification, has removed 4,102 sub-standard journals.

Currently, the UGC recognises only three categories of academic journals.

They are journals indexed in "Web of Science or Scopus", those recommended by the Standing Committee and Language Committee, and those recommended by universities, the minister had said.