Publish or Perish: The solution

The publish-or-perish process in Nigerian University system has been described in a previous post and the challenges with the process (here).   There is the need to re-examine the process to reward hard work, discourage mediocrity and improve the quality of research in our university system.  In this post, I describe my views on how the publish-or-perish process can be greatly enhanced for maximum impact.

(1)  All fingers must be equal:  Local journals must have the same value with international journal.  Preferences and special treatment of local journals under the guise of "developing local content"  has not actually developed any local journal.  Requiring a certain percentage of publication for promotion to be published locally encourages mediocrity, as local journals see this as a steady stream of income.  

(2)  Quality over quantity:  The work of identifying quality research has been done by indexing services.  I do not think there is a need to re-invent the wheel.  Institutions should identify quality based indexing services such as Scopus, Clarivate Analytics and others and adopt them.  Only researches indexed by the adopted services will be used for promotion.  This will remove the need for several in-house and international assessments. The number of required articles and years of experience  per level is clearly stated and maintained.

(3)  Streamline the process:  The process of promotion should not be complicated, at least the publication aspect.  Researchers will submit the usual form without printing hard copies of peer reviewed articles.  The Department validates all other components (teaching and community service) except publications.  The report is sent to a central University body who will also confirm that submitted publications are in the approved indexing services.  No reading and reporting on each published articles, no scoring, no multilevel interdepartmental meetings!

(4)  Cut the extra baggage:  By considering all journals to be equal and using global best standards of quality indexing, extra baggage in the publication assessment such as considering volume 40 and above,  rejecting journals from countries like Iran;  searching for countries of origin of journals; will be eliminated.  Publication assessment should not be a nightmare that consumes the researchers time, money, and energy.  The promotion exercise in itself should not be another research endeavour. 

The advantages of this concise and equitable process is numerous.  

(1)  reward hard work and reduce mediocrity

(2)  eliminate bias, prejudice in the promotion process

(3)  basis to demand for better funding

(4)  better representation in international rankings of institutions

(5)  save time, energy, and resources for researchers, assessors, and institution.

We cannot continue to demand quality education in line with global best practices and operate a researcher assessment policy that deviates from the global norm.  The assessment of a research should not be subject to the whims and caprices of administrators, prejudice of colleagues, and unnecessary bureaucratic processes. 

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

Stoves, health and environment

How do we achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7 of affordable and clean energy?  Currently, majority of rural dwellers use firewood, which is cheap and readily available around them.  The use of coal is still prevalent in many households. These approaches poses a threat to the environment and life.  Users are exposed to poisonous gas and use of firewood degrades the environment.  Many of this cooking takes place in confined environments which increases the health risk.  Cooking gas, although subsidized is still beyond the reach of many families.  

Prof. Adedayo and his team at the Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology Akure considered this problem and came up with a plausible solution.  This work focuses on the design, development and construction of a forced-air, top-lit, updraft biomass gasifier stove.  To provide draft for the stove, the group incorporated an electronic fan which can be driven from the mains or solar powered.  The biomass fuel for the present design is palm kernel shell. A picture of the final constructed stove is shown below.

The research group compared the finished product with a kerosene and gas stove.  From the result (shown above), the constructed stove compares well with a gas stove in performance.  The stove was also found to emit less fumes than the conventional firewood stove.  This innovation can go a long way to combat diseases and deaths inhalation of dangerous gases during cooking.   There is the need to improve on this and involve policy makers in this development.

References

1.  Adedayo, K., Owoola, E. & Ogunjo, S. "The development of an enhanced biomass gasifier stove" Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., India, Sect. A Phys. Sci. (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40010-018-0570-y

Ozone, vegetation and our health

Ozone is a gas that is closely related to oxygen - yes, the gas we breathe in.  Is Ozone good or bad for us?  Well, it is both good and bad.  Ozone is a very bad gas to our health when it exist close to the ground.   However, beyond this region it is very good as it protects us from the harmful effect of the sun.    So, we want ozone in the upper atmosphere but not in the lower atmosphere.

There are a lot of things that remove ozone from the upper atmosphere.  One of them is the amount of trees or vegetation we have on the ground.  This is one of the reason people concerned about the environment ask that we plant trees around us.  How exactly does the amount of trees affect the total ozone in the atmosphere?  This was the focus of the research by Ogunjo and other researchers [1].

To do this, there is the need to assign numbers to trees.  Impossible? Using satellite data, regions with very high amount of trees and vegetation are given the number 1 while places with no trees or vegetation get the number 0.  This method constitute the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).   From a similar satellite, the amount of ozone in the atmosphere was also gotten.  The authors now conducted an analysis over West Africa.  Their result can be seen in the figure below.

Figure 1:  Linear relationship between NDVI and total ozone column [1]

The authors found out that as we cut and burn trees in West Africa we reduce the amount of ozone available to protect us.  It could be seen from their figure that if the amount of vegetation increases, the total ozone column also increases and vice versa.   They discovered that regions with high amount of vegetation also have high amount of ozone.    The rapid population growth in West Africa (especially Nigeria) is increasing the demand for housing, clothing, feeding, and other necessities.  All these place demand on our vegetation.    The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is NOW!  There is the urgent need to protect our future by increasing our vegetation.  This is not a job for one but for all.

References

[1]  Ogunjo, S., Fuwape, I., Rabiu, B., Oluyamo, S., & Owoola, E. (2019). Assessing the Impact of Vegetation Cover on Total Column Ozone Over West Africa. In Advances in Remote Sensing and Geo Informatics Applications (pp. 231-233). Springer, Cham.

Executive Order 5: Implication for Nigerian Academic Institutions

In recent times, the Nigerian academic landscape has been witnessing increased agitation for better funding.  This was necessitated by obsolete research facilities, increasing number of students amidst inadequate teaching and learning resources and poor funding of institutions.  It is no longer news that the current model of educational funding in Nigeria must be discussed with the participation of all stakeholders.  

President Muhammadu Buhari

On 5th February 5, 2018, President Muhammad Buhari signed into law "Executive Order 5".  This executive order, though not as popular as Executive Order 1 which addresses the ease of doing business in Nigeria, has significant implications for higher institutions in Nigeria.  Although it addresses the planning and execution of projects, promotion of Nigerian content in contracts, science, engineering and technology, it can bolster the quality of education in Nigerian Universities if they can look beyond the free money. 

Minister of Education: Mr. Adamu Adamu

The vision of the executive order to "promote the application of science, technology and innovation in all sectors of the Nigerian economy" positions Nigerian institutions of higher learning for significant gains.   The executive order "gives preference to Nigerian companies and firms in the award of contracts" (Section 1(1)), firms with verifiable plan for indigenous capacity development (Section 1(2)), "adopt local technology" (Section 1(6)), and "preference granted to domestic manufacturers, contractors and suppliers (Section 3(1))".   

In my own opinion, it is high time academics started creating spin-off companies from their researchers and Universities go beyond producing "pure" water and bread to competitive bidding for building and construction contracts, national security projects and national training programmes.   Just as institutions came together to form the Joint University Preliminary Examination Body, they can come together to build large scale industries.   Academics need to look up from their chalkboards and manuscript to see opportunities such as the funding proposed in Section 5(5) of Executive Order 5, incentives for building and infrastructural development material (Section 9(1c)), and tax incentives in Section 10(2).  With the disqualification from contract based on year of incorporation frowned at in Section 6, university-driven industries can compete favourably with established organization in bidding for contracts.

Executive order 5, like other Nigerian laws, have its obvious lacuna.   Section 5(4) encouraged the inclusion of public procurement process in the Secondary School curriculum!  Does our University curriculum cover the public procurement process?  This executive order has been in existence for over nine (9) months, do we know the secretariat of the Council at the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology (Section 12(1a))?   Section 12(6) listed members of the Presidential Monitoring and Evaluation Council with representatives of the academic community missing.  Nigerian academic are central to this executive order and deserve a place in the decision (or monitoring and evaluation) committee.

What is your favourite number?

We all have favourites.  From places to meals, having favourite is an unconscious part of our existence.  Can we ask ourselves, why do i like the things that i like?  Our seemingly innocuous actions such as choosing a random number have a huge significance that we might not be aware of.  For instance, it is used in psychology and psychiatry for a number of diagnosis. If you are asked to choose a number between 1 and 10, what will be your choice?  What does this choice say about you?  What factors will likely affect your choice - religion, age, gender, intelligence, or mood?  

If a group of randomly selected individuals are asked to pick a random number between 1 and 10, what do you think will be the favourite number?  Why do you think it will be 7?  What factors will determine the favourite number?

Ogunjo et al (2018) examined this research questions in their new publication (read here) .  They asked over 2000 undergraduate students to pick a favourite number between 1 and 10.  The favourite number was found to be 1!  

Statistics of chosen numbers

What factors could be responsible for this?  They found that gender (either male or female), age (young or old), intelligence (performance in a quick test) did not contribute statistically to this choice of number.  However, the faculty they belong to was found to be a significant contributor.

There is still very much more to be done.  Researchers need to broaden the scope of contributing factors to include tribe, religion, political affiliation, and  mood.  Can we use the favourite numbers among a group of individuals to predict group dynamics? 

References

Ogunjo, Samuel T, Emmanuel J Dansu, Oluwagbenga Fakanye, and Ibiyinka A Fuwape. 2018. “The Possibility of Uniform Pseudo-Random Number Generation by a Group of Humans.” OSF. October 6. osf.io/ms9y3. 

 

Cost of higher education in Nigeria

There is an increase in the number of applicants into higher degrees in our Universities.  Some graduates believe that it is a remedy for poor undergraduate grades while others are in it for better chances of employment.  What is the attendant cost of postgraduate education in Nigeria?  The survey of a few institutions within the country reveals the following

Table 1:  Cost of MSc programmes across Nigerian Universities (NS - Not specified. All cost are in Nigerian Naira)

Institution	Form	Acceptance	Year1	Year2	Oral exam	Remarks
FUTA	20000	40000	120000	85000	70000
FUOYE	15000	30000	120000	NS
UNN	25000	25000	96000	96000
BUK	10500	10000	130000	NS	50000	Cost is for Faculty of Sciences
UNILAG	22500	65000	75000	NS		Cost is for Faculty of Education

Table 2:  Fee structure for PhD programmes across Nigerian Universities  (NS - Not specified. All cost are in Nigerian Naira)

Institution	Form	Acceptance	Year1	Year2	Year3	Oral exam	Remarks
FUTA	20000	40000	150000	125000	100000	75000
FUOYE	15000	50000	150000	ns	ns	ns
UI	15000	40000	140000	124000	ns	ns	Faculty of Sciences
EKSU	16000	32000	181750	181750	181750	60000	N10,000 is paid per session each for PG  fee and faculty due
UNN	25000	25000	96000	96000	96000	ns
BUK	10500	10000	195000	ns	ns	95000
NSU	20000	20000	160000	ns	ns	ns
UNILAG	22500	65000	75000	75000	75000	ns	Faculty of Education
UNI ILORIN	25000	ns	125000	ns	ns	ns

NB:  The data presented here will be updated as more information become available.

Climate change will increase civil conflicts in Subsaharan Africa

The issue of climate change and it's impact on the lives and livelihood of Nigerians is not going away any time soon.  Climate change is an established fact globally.  The effect of climate change on our agricultural products especially grains has been reported on this blog (here and here).  Our weather is not what it used to be.  There were times we look forward to "seven-days" rainfall but it seems we no longer see it.  The harshest of harmattan usually occurs late December but it is common to observe it mid-January these days.  That is climate change.  A report published in May 2017 is suggesting that not only will our maize production be reduced, the number of civil conflicts will increase!

Jun (2017) obtained Maize production data from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and temperature data from both the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5).  The trend in all the data use is shown in the figure below.  The analysis was conducted in two phases.  First, maize production was considered to be determined by maize-growing season temperature, the set of country-specific variables, the country fixed effect, the time trend, annual mean temperature and its squared term.      Civil conflicts was then evaluated for when the maize yield was high and compared to when it was low due to temperature. T¯ 

Trends on maize yield, civil conflict incidence, maize-growing season temperature, and annual mean temperature. a and b show annual maize yield and civil conflict incidence, respectively. c shows mean temperature in maize-growing season (solid) and annual mean temperature (dash) in our historical sample. d extends information in c to year 2100 by using mean of the 18 CMIP5 climate model outputs in the period of 2006–2100 (Jun, 2017)

The author did the analysis and the result is alarming.  The author specifically found that the increase in temperature between 1979 and 2012 caused a decrease in maize production.  This is said to cause an increase in civil conflicts.  Future projections indicate that civil conflicts will increase in subsaharan Africa by 33% between 2031 and 2050 and by 100% by 2081 - 3010 compared to what we have in 1981 - 2000. 

Hmm.  We need to start talking to ourselves o!  The impact of climate change on our lives is becoming more alarming.  There is the urgent need to implement mitigation strategies if we do not want to be caught unawares.  What are the ways out?  We need to cut our waste production, increase awareness about our environment, actively and consciously begin to plant trees, recycle our waste, reduce emissions amongst other steps.

References

(1) Jun T. (2017)  "Temperature, maize yield, and civil conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa" Climate Change 142(1-2):183 - 197.

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Lagos: Any respite from the floods?

Any story about Nigeria without Lagos is incomplete.  Lagos has a significant role in the past and future of the country.  it is regarded as the commercial nerve centre of the country.  However, the beautiful city of Lagos is not without her own peculiar challenges.  The population of Lagos is on the increase, no thanks to the allure of "gold on the street" sold to rural dwellers.  This growing population is impacting on the existing infrastructure within the city.  In recent times, another challenge is coming to light - flooding.  Being a coastal city, Lagos is prone to heavy rainfall.   Heavy rainfall coupled with improper planning and waste disposal, flooding is becoming pronounced in different parts of the State.  Will the flooding stop any time soon?

Not according to Prof. Abiodun and his colleagues.  According to their report "A decrease in annual precipitation is projected over Cape Town, Maputo and Port Said, whilst an increase is projected over Lagos, where the water surplus from the more extreme precipitation events exceeds the deficit from the less wet days" (Abiodun et al, 2017).  How was this conclusion reached?  The authors used two future climate scenarion (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5)  to compute moderate extreme events.  The moderate extreme events computed include the total number of days for which rainfall is greater than 1mm, the total number of days in a year when the rainfall on a given day is above 20 mm and twelve other indices.  This analysis was done for four coastal African cities - Cape Town, Maputo, Port Said and Lagos.  The authors found that the number of wet days in a year in Lagos will reduce but the total precipitation will increase.  This means we will be having fewer rainfall but those rains will be very heavy.  An implication of this is the increase in number of dry days.  This will affect agricultural products at planting and harvesting.  It also means we are going to have hotter days.  Lagos was found to be an exception to most of these results.  

Projected percentage changes in extreme precipitation indices over the four cities (a Cape Town, b Maputo, c Lagos and d Port Said) in the two future periods (2046–2065 and 2081–2100) under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The changes are calculated with reference to the past climate (1986–2005) and are averaged over the neighbourhood of the city(Abiodun et al, 2017)

What can Lagos State do about these results?  While it can be argued that not much is going on in terms of agriculture in Lagos, the little agriculture we can lay claim to is under threat.  Will the current structural and environmental plan be viable in the future under higher flood? There is no doubt that the Lagos State government has a lot to do in terms of planning.  Recent land reclamation activities along the coastal areas should be reconsidered in light of these results.

Reference

Abiodun, B.J., Adegoke, J., Abatan, A.A. et al. Climatic Change (2017) 143: 399. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2001-5
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