Publish or Perish: The Problems

In the first part of this series (here), the publication aspect of promotion process in Nigerian Universities was discussed.  The series continues with problems inherent in the publish or perish process as practiced in Nigeria.


Counter intuitive:  The process currently practiced defies logic.  Academic publishing depends on quality peer review.  A published paper is one that has been seen and approved by at least two of your peers, usually from around the world.  In Nigeria, this same published paper is subjected to pseudo-peer-review.  At each stage of the promotion, your published paper (already peer-reviewed) will be accessed by senior colleagues in the Department, Faculty and University (three different assessment levels!!).    This implies that a publication I had as a Graduate Assistant will be evaluated and scored about 6 different times after publication!  What forms the basis of the new scoring - quality, content or what?  Is the quality of the paper still being accessed after publication?

Breeds mediocrity:  Many academic institutions in Nigeria do not consider the most important thing in academic publishing - quality peer review.  This is currently a global issue.  There are organizations around the world who will accept your paper for publication within 2 - 5 days provided you can pay the price.  India and Nigeria leads in the number of such organizations per country.  Desperate for promotion, after playing politics for many years, i can approach a local journal run by my friend or a foreign fake journal and get my article published.  There are indeed organizations that hosts reputable journals and ensure they conform to the highest standards.  They include: Clarivate Analytics and Scopus.   Recently, African Journals Online (AJOL) started a rating system for African Journals.  Nigerian Universities will not rank among the global best not because we do not do quality research but because we publish more in fake journals.  Most local journals thrive on the local content policy in our promotion exercise.  Many have not improved in quality as there is no pressure. 

Waste of resources and time:  For each stage of the evaluation (Department, Faculty, and University), there is the unavoidable printing of copies of credentials and publications due to corrections and formatting.   For the senior cadres (Senior Lecturers, Readers and Professor), the same materials are usually sent to foreign researchers to evaluate!  These are the same people who reviewed the works in the first place.  We add the burden of our inefficiency to their already bloated workload of teaching, research, grantsmanship, peer-reviewing and editorship.  How many foreign evaluations do Nigerian researchers receive in a year?


Deviation from global best practices:  The publication aspect of our promotion in Nigerian Universities  does not usually align with global best practices.    For instance, it is generally accepted that advisors take the last authorship positions in a publication.  However, our policies that first author get more marks has led to advisors fighting their students over authorship positions.  Some institutions sets minimum number of volume in a journal your publication must be in to be acceptable for publication.  A State institution only accepts your publication if it is in Volume 40 and above of a journal.  If the whole world accepts this as the standard, will there be any new journal?   Articles having more than four authors generally score less mark.  These has reduced collaborations (which is what we actually need) among researchers and removal of qualified authors.


While the quality and quantify of publication is not the only criteria for promotion in Nigerian Universities, it remains the most significant.  The other aspects which are teaching and community services are most often mandatory activities.  We must improve on our current processes to accommodate only the best brains.  It is understandable if we have developed these processes to cater for our local peculiarities, however, it is pertinent to reevaluate these processes in light of new information.  Our institutions cannot be taken seriously with the way we promote mediocrity.  This reflects in the various global rankings of academic institutions.  Quality publication is not necessarily about funding; it is mainly about stretching the mind for excellent output.

My proposed solutions are presented here

Publish or Perish: The Process

"Publish or perish" in the academics originates from the fact that without publishing, researchers will not get promoted.   Nigerian researchers have three core duties: research, teaching and community service.  Publishing entails creating a novel idea, investigating the idea through analysis, getting the results accepted by your peers in the field.

What are the processes involved in publishing and how does it translate to promotion for researchers?  Let's start with the publishing process.

The Publishing Process

 After a researcher has conceived an idea, investigated the concept through "research" and reached a conclusion, a report of the entire process is written as a manuscript. This manuscript is sent to a Journal .  A journal can be part of a large publishing enterprise, an independent body, owned by a national or international association or an academic institution or unit within it.  The Editor, who oversees the affairs of the Journal (sometimes with the help of associate editors), decide whether the manuscript conforms to the journal template, fit into the journal's objective and focus, and of significant standards to merit publishing.  If he is satisfied, the manuscript is sent to reviewers, whose duties include scrutinizing the manuscript and proffering suggestions and corrections.  The reviewing process can be single blind, double blind, or open peer-review.   This process can take between one month to a few years, depending on several factors.  The manuscript can be rejected or sent back for minor/major corrections.  When the reviewers are satisfied with the revisions done on the manuscript, it will be accepted for publication.  Sometimes, we refer to this final product as paper.  A conference paper is based on presentations at a conference.  Academics also publish monographs, book chapters, books, and technical reports.

The Promotion Process

Nigerian Universities have similar promotion criteria and process.  The promotion process begins at the Department with the distribution of the Annual Performance Evaluation Form (APER FORM).  It is on this form you list your teaching, research and other activities for the period under consideration.  All your papers or publications, with the recent ones marked, are listed on this form.  An internal reviewer is appointed to consider your submission against a set of benchmarks.  Points are awarded for each of your publications which are then used in deciding whether you qualify for promotion or not.  The benchmarks vary from institution to institutions.  Some institutions require that the Journal volume must not be less than 40.  There is a limited number of articles you can publish in a volume of a journal and the journal itself.  There is a minimum number of articles for which you must be the first or sole author. Furthermore, there is a limit to the number of articles you published in the year of promotion.  A few institutions have blacklisted journal articles published in selected countries or even publishers.  Almost all institutions require that you have at least three publication since your last promotion. After the internal review, your application will be considered at the faculty and university level.  This process requires making lots of copies of your applications and publications. All the forms of publication have different points assigned to them.

For junior staff (Assistant Lecturer to Lecturer I), the University Appointments and Promotion Committees forward their recommendations to the Vice Chancellor.  However, for senior cadres (Senior Lecturers to Professors), copies of their publications are sent to three national and international reviewers.  Your promotion at this point depends on the report of these reviewers.

The challenges with these process is discussed in the article Publish or Perish: The Problems