Will Mandatory Research Publication Help Indonesia's R

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http://www.asianscientist.com/academia/mandatory-research-publication-indonesia-ministry-of-higher-education-2012/

OPINION: Will Mandatory Research Publication Help Indonesia's R&D?

By Tika Y. Sukarna | Academia
March 16, 2012

Indonesia's higher education ministry recently made research publication
a graduation requirement for all its students. But will this help to
cure Indonesia's lagging state of scholarship?
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AsianScientist (Mar. 16, 2012) – The Indonesian Ministry of Higher
Education recently distributed a letter mandating that all university
students publish a research article in scholarly journals as a
requirement for their degree.

The letter stated that "the number of scholarly publications from
Indonesian universities overall is seven times lower than Malaysia" as
the reason behind the decision.

"We are far behind. We must understand that this situation is very
urgent since the number of scholarly research publications have a strong
correlation to per capita income," the Ministry of Education's Director
General Djoko Santoso explained.

But will this help to cure Indonesia's lagging state of Indonesian
scholarship?

Every year, 5,000 to 6,000 students graduate from the University of
Indonesia alone. Students are already required to conduct research
summed up in a final research thesis, under the supervision of faculty
members who rarely have time to do research from moonlighting on the
side to compensate for their low incomes and lack of funding.

Yet, according to the mandate, thesis work bound neatly into books every
year by these students does not qualify as a form of publication as they
must be housed in a scholarly journal approved by the Ministry of Education.

In reaction, the University of Indonesia is, for instance, establishing
an online-based journal that will house five- to ten-page summaries of
every thesis to bypass the mandate. At the very least, with the ability
to access the names of supervising faculty online, "the credibility of
the supervising faculty may be questioned if the scholarly work of its
student is of low quality," said the University of Indonesia Rektor
Gumilar Rusliwa Soemantri.

Most likely though, only a few of those able and qualified to do so will
have the time to download, read, and ponder over the work of these 6,000
graduating students with the next batch of 6,000 students due the
following year.

Those who would be most hard hit see the mandate for publication as
another hurdle of bureaucratic red tape, adding yet another layer of an
"official" stamp of approval that ignores the real problems ailing
scholarly research in Indonesia, such as a hostile scholarly
environment, low pay, lack of funding, and overall difficult social
political landscape.

Indonesia's publication standing compared to its neighbors

On a global framework, a scholar's value depends on the quantity of
research articles published and cited by others in scholarly journals,
especially to obtain funding and research positions. In other words,
scholars must "publish or perish."

Interestingly, in conflict with the Education Ministry's estimate of
Indonesia's poor progress in scholarly publication, the SCImago Scopus
scholarly publication database showed that from 1996 to 2007, although
Indonesia produced approximately one-fourth the number of scholarly
publication output compared to Malaysia, Indonesia's citations per
individual scholarly document ranked at 10 compared to Malaysia's rank
of 20.

Citations are a measure of a research publication impact, that is, a
research article's contribution to the development of a specific field
of study after it is published.

Even more interesting, with the current "brain drain" which includes an
exodus of Indonesian scholars to Malaysia, a measure of Indonesia-based
researcher productivity through the H-index over the same period showed
that Indonesia is not trailing far behind at 11th rank compared to
Malaysia's 9th rank.

Even with the poor publication output rate, the few Indonesian based
scholars who are able to do research and publish them are at a quality
level that is not so far lagging compared to other Asian nations.

New requirement places additional burdens on scholars

What effect will the Ministry's mandate have on this already precarious
state of Indonesian scholarly output, and are we yet again adding just
another layer of burden on scholars through excessive formalism that
fails to address the fundamental reasons behind the state we are in?

At present, few university faculty members in Indonesia, given the
research environment structure they inherited, have the capacity to
perform the scope of research that is required for Indonesia to compete
on a global scale.

We are not producing as much as we can because few of us are around to
do so. Those who are around aren't productive enough because the current
research climate is detrimental to their efforts to meet those goals.
Those able and willing to work are given multiple duties that in the end
impinge on their research productivity, forcing many to uproot
themselves out of the country, if not succumb to administrative duties
or political maneuverings.

In effect, what the mandate may do instead is to induce an
overproduction of research publications that, for the sake of quick and
abundant production, are mostly poor in quality. In the end, although
the number of research articles may rise, the overall quality may
plummet, diminishing the accomplishments achieved thus far.

Nuture Indonesia's best, focus on quality instead

Instead on focusing on the number of publications from a total pool that
mostly has little capacity to do so, a better alternative may be to
focus on the few Indonesian academic researchers who have already shown
distinction in scholarly productivity and find ways for their working
style to be replicated, besides focusing on maintaining and improving
the quality of output.

Indonesia may learn from the example of Iran, which has grown in
scientific capacity making it at the present the fastest growing in the
world. Scientific output in Iran has grown 11 times faster compared to
other nations globally, and its research publications have quadrupled in
just a decade. Although the number of publications are still relatively
low, the average impact factor of Iranian papers has risen.

Interestingly, much of Iran's improvement can be traced back to a
handful of those who have attained distinction in their own specialized
fields. Iran has also focused on investing more public money into
science, allowing high-quality research to grow and flourish.

By giving universities and research institutes more autonomy, and by
increasing the salaries of academics, many researchers are now relieved
and able to make ends meet without taking on second and third jobs.

Will Indonesia make the same leap?

Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of
AsianScientist or its staff.
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