The flaws of the new mandatory student paper publication policy

Sumber:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/03/17/the-flaws-new-mandatory-student-paper-publication-policy.html

Opinion
The flaws of the new mandatory student paper publication policy
Hamin and Chris Baumann, The Jakarta Post, Sydney | Sat, 03/17/2012 11:45 AM
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A new policy was just introduced on Jan. 27 by the Director General of
Higher Education requiring all university students to publish academic
journals as part of their degrees.

Western tertiary education strongly pushes academics to publish, so for
Indonesia a similar approach will enhance the next generation of
researchers' global competitiveness and raise Indonesia's global
profile. However, the question for Indonesia is to what degree the new
policy should include all three levels of tertiary education.

It does make sense for Indonesian research students at the masters and
doctoral level, where both have to write a thesis, to aspire journal
publications. But for undergraduate and coursework masters students, the
new policy may face two major challenges.

The first challenge is practicality. The new policy will come into
effect in August 2012, leaving little time for universities and students
to prepare. Both students and supervising academics lack the experience
and expertise to achieve publications in respected outlets at such short
notice.

But even longer term, the design of a three- to four-year undergraduate
program or a one- to one-and-a-half-year master's degree is not a
realistic framework for students to obtain scientific results that
actually warrant a publication. Students at that level are prepared for
a professional rather than a scientific career and as such the study
pattern is broken up into very specific courses.

Practically, a journal publication takes at least one year (and much
longer for well-respected international journals), which is practically
impossible for a short master's degree program. In addition, even papers
from experienced scientists and academics with strong research projects
often get rejected for publication of their work. This also means that
the chances for students to publish their work internationally are minimal.

The second challenge is pedagogical alignment. The objective for
undergraduate students is to actually learn about the subjects at hand,
such as accounting and marketing, or computing or medical, but not to
generate original research. As such, requiring undergraduate students to
publish is simply not aligned with the learning goals of preparing
undergraduate students for the real job market.

On the other hand, doctoral degrees and masters by thesis programs are
in fact designed to educate future scientists and academics at that
level, a requirement to conduct research and publish their results is a
push in the right direction.

The new policy moves away from Indonesia's previous "link and match"
program that in fact ensured that each industry's needs for skilled
labor were met. Pushing even undergraduate and course-work masters
students into science will distract attention and move away resources
from the more practical skills needed to enhance Indonesia's
competitiveness in a global workforce market.

Essentially, while this new policy is based on good intentions, it
focuses on the wrong target group. The purpose of the new policy is to
bring Indonesia close to the Asia-Pacific region such as Australia,
Singapore and South Korea in terms of their strong academic publication
output.

What needs to be done to achieve this benchmark is not to focus on all
university students, but to adapt the Australian model where the system
provides resources and incentives at both the university and individual
academic's level to publish in highly ranks international journals.

Doctoral degrees are done by publication where PhD students must publish
together with their academic supervisor, resulting in favorable outcomes
for both parties, and the university and country overall since all
benefit from the publications.

Strong publications result from skills, inspiration, resources and a
supportive environment that frees up time for academics to actually
conduct the research.

Therefore, the new policy should be repositioned to provide universities
and its academics with these resources, but the policy should not focus
on undergraduate students to lift Indonesia's academic record. Funding
needs to be provided for Indonesian researchers to design impactful
projects, fund international data collection to allow for rigorous
analyses and testing, and fund conference attendance to line up global
collaboration and networking in academic and professional circles.

Dr. Hamin is a lecturer in business at Macquarie University in Sydney,
Australia. Dr. Chris Baumann is a senior lecturer at Macquarie University.