Advice to UM VC: Clean up the promotion process

Below is an edited version of an email I sent to an academic in UM whom I've been corresponding with. I received news from this academic that the new UM VC was being pushed to bring UM back into the top 200 in the THES rankings within 2 years and back into the top 100 within 5 years. One of the things he's been trying to do is to 'force' UM academics to publish a minimum of 2 articles in journals which are considered 'impactful' journals (or ISI journals). My advice to the UM VC: Concentrate on cleaning up the promotion process instead of being distracted by this pipe dream of climbing the THES rankings.

Apologies for the late reply. Was overdosing on turkey yesterday.

This is what I wrote to the new VC in a previous post:

P.S. One of the first pieces of 'advice' I would give to Dr. Jasmon is to read the measurements in the THES rankings very carefully. That way, he can avoid making some of the same mistakes made by his predecessors. For example, Rafiah probably should not have tried to take credit for 'improving' UM's ranking from 246 to 230. After the top 100 schools, the differentiation in terms of scores between the rest of the schools is miniscule at best. A measurement error could easily push the ranking of a school from 250 to 210 or from 250 to 290.

Secondly, I would 'advise' him to stay as far away from these rankings as possible. Play down expectations by saying that UM is in no position to compete with the top universities in the world. Instead say that UM is trying to consolidate its academic resources in specific areas and trying to slowly but surely increase the % of PhD holders among its faculty as well as their publication records. This way, he can divorce himself somewhat from the vagaries of the THES ranking system.

Do you think he really understands how stupid the demands of his masters at the MOHE are? Top 100 within 5 years? Try getting all your faculty to have PhDs first.

Here are a few responses to what you've said below.

I totally agree with what you've said about the need for a customized approach towards trying to improve the different faculties and departments.

Here are a few of my thoughts on this and we may differ / disagree on some of the finer points perhaps because of my US training and also perhaps because of my field.

I think one of the most effective things which the new VC can do is to improve and make more transparent the promotion processes in the university. If he can do this, he'll be able to give the right incentives for the different academics to publish and make an impactful contribution to the academia, either in Malaysia or internationally. He should put in place certain processes which ensures that only the right people are promoted and that those who do not contribute academically should not be.

Here is what I think the criterion for evaluating promotions should be:

1) The number of papers in peer reviewed journals
- I really think that it's important for one's work to be evaluated by one's peer and that publications in these sorts of journals should count more than publications in journals which are not peer reviewed, even though some of these journals may be read more by the 'practitioners' in the field.
- We probably may disagree on this but I do think that there are tiers in peer reviewed journals. Some are obviously more 'presitigous' and harder to get published in than others. I think our scholars should be rewarded for being published in the more prestigous journals compared to the less prestigious ones. These would make our scholars more well known internationally as opposed to being published in less prestigious journals which may be read by more people in the region i.e. Asia or South East Asia.
- But I think the disagreement here may be more on an academic rather than a practical level. My impression is that the problem among our academics is that many of them don't even published regularly in peer reviewed journals, whatever the quality. My impression is based on my interactions with those in the political science faculty so I apologize in advance if this is not reflective of the faculty in your department. My guess is that there are probably easily over 200 political science faculty spread across the different public universities in Malaysia. Based on the stuff I've read in political science peer reviewed journals (and I define this quite loosely), there are probably 10 academics in our public universities that have actually published anything in these journals. I have no idea where the rest of the people publish but I'm guessing that they publish mostly in Malay journals which may not be peer reviewed and also Malay academic books which are probably not peer reviewed as well. I'm guessing that many of them don't even make the bar using these much 'looser' requirements. So for these academics, getting them to publish something, anything, is already a good start. Forget about the ISI journals.
- Let me give you an example from personal experience. I just finished completing a 1st draft of an article which I think has a pretty good chance of being published in one of the top political science journals. If I do make the grade, I'll probably be the first Malaysian political scientist to get published in a journal of this quality. To write the paper which I'm writing, I had to spend about 1 year collecting elections data from 152 countries. After that I had to do case study work for about 30 of those countries. And then I had to many regressions to test the modes which i wanted to test. I just sent the paper out to about 20 people for comments and feedback. After the feedback comes in, I'll have revise my paper again and probably run more regressions. And then I send it in to the peer reviewed journal. Wait to see if it is accepted. If it is, it will come back with comments from 3 reviewers and I have to amend my paper to take into account those comments. From the start of this project to when I hope the paper will be published will be 2 years, give or take. All this for a 35 page paper. I cannot imagine many Malaysian political scientists who may not have had the luxury of the training I've received of going through this process. If I were the head of the polisci department of a Msian public university, I would encourage the faculty, especially the younger ones, to publish in region journals which may be easier to get published in and go from there.

2) Editor of a edited volume

- Besides writing one or two articles in these volumes, an editor has the additional responsibility of collecting and editing these articles.
- Of course, there are also differences in the quality and impact of different edited volumes. Those which are published by good publishers obviously have more reach and impact than those which are published by less well known publishers.

3) Chapters in edited volumes.

- Although many of these volumes are not peer reviewed (except by the editor, who of course, would have different standards than anonymous reviewers in peer reviewed journals), they can be impact chapters which can genuinely add to the body of knowledge of a particular subject. It may by the preference of some who want to publish something quickly and do not want to suffer through the vagaries of a peer review process.

4) Conference papers

- These are not the same as the above since they have not been converted to papers or chapters. But they should be counted if it is in the process of being converted into something more substantive

5) Other organizational responsibilities

- These should be things which contribute to the intellectual life of the department including organizing important conferences, inviting speakers to come and share ideas, etc...

6) Writing articles for newspapers, magazines etc...

- I would probably benefit from this but I would put it very low on the totem pole. It reflects the responsibility of an academic to be a public intellectual but it is DEFINITELY NOT a replacement for being published in journals or books.

You can see where my priorities lie - they have to be in publishing material, the heartbeat of an academic's life.

I think if you can get the promotion review process, either internally or externally, to be able to take into account, holistically, the career of an academic thus far, the VC will have done a lot in terms of getting the message out there that you cannot be academically unproductive and still expect to be promoted. I still hear stories of how academics who are less accomplished are being promoted over those who are more accomplished because of racial quotas or connections with the VC or the right politicians. If a sound review process is in place, you don't actually have to put in place the 2 ISI journals in one year requirement. You can take a three year cycle of an academic's career and make promotion decisions on a medium term outlook.

Lastly, on the teaching load bit, I'd ask the VC to think creatively here. One possibility is to recruit more Masters and PhD students who can then act as TAs for the professors. This will decrease the marking load for many professors and hopefully allow them to be more productive academically.

Sorry for being so long winded but I've been thinking about this over the last day or so.

Cheers,

Kian Ming