Journal Press India

Editorial

After the success of high Index Copernicus Value [(65.33 (2015)] of Delhi Business Review, I am pleased share the inclusion of Delhi Business Review in the approved list of Journals by University Grants Commission, Ministry of HRD, Government of India, New Delhi, India. [9455] vide its notification dated Jan. 11, 2017. http://www.ugc.ac.in/ugc_notices.aspx?id=1604.

The above approval of DBR means that any research paper published in DBR will be entitled for API score at the highest value for faculty positions and promotions of faculty members engaged in higher education. All the authors of research papers, technical team members, members of the Editorial Team and Editorial Advisory Team, and well wishers of Delhi Business Review deserve congratulations on the inclusion of DBR.

The list has 38,653 journals across disciplines organized in alphabetical order of name of the journal placed in five files. There are few journals from the management/commerce stream which have found place in the list. Following are the details of the letter issued by the Secretary of the University Grants Commission.

The UGC Regulations on Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and Other Academic Staff and Other Measures for the Maintenance of Standards of Higher Education, 2010 have been amended vide University Grants Commission (Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education) (4th Amendment) Regulations, 2016 and the same have been notified in the Gazette of India on 11th July 2016. In the aforementioned UGC (4th Amendment) Regulations, 2016, Category III of the API Tables of Academic Performance Indicator (API) for Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) and Direct Recruitment, along with other conditions, provides for API score for Refereed Journals, as notified and identified by the UGC. The Standing Committee constituted by the University Grants Commission for identifying journals in different domains of knowledge has approved the List of Journals for the purpose of Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) and Direct Recruitment of teachers and other academic staff as required under the University Grants Commission (Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education) (4th Amendment) Regulations, 2016. This is a dynamic list which may be reviewed from time to time.

This was required to be done as lot of journals emerged during the last few years who started making quick money from the innocent authors. It is a move towards ensuring quality in research. There are lot of good journals which are not included in the list and need to be considered in the next round for which the letter has been issued by the Secretary of UGC on Jan. 30, 2017.

The basic purpose is to enhance quality of publications. Another initiative in the related direction taken by UGC vide its Notification (Minimum Standards & Procedure for Award of M.Phil. / Ph.D Degree, Regulation, 2009) dated 1st June 2009 (Appendix I) provides mandate for submission of electronic version of theses and dissertations by the researchers in universities with an aim to facilitate open access to Indian theses and dissertation to the academic community world-wide. Online availability of electronic theses through centrally-maintained digital repositories, will not only ensure easy access and archiving of Indian doctoral theses but will also help in raising the standard and quality of research. This would overcome serious problem of duplication of research and poor quality resulting from the “poor visibility” and the “unseen” factor in research output.

The objectives of the scheme are to provide financial assistance for:
Providing access to Indian theses and dissertations in open access to world-wide academic community;
Setting-up of ETD Laboratory in eligible universities;
Extending access to anti-plagiarism software package in member universities; and
Funds for digitization of back lists of theses available in universities.

http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/newmoredetails/UGC_Guidelines_for_Shodhganga.pdf.

While the UGC’s new initiatives are necessary and welcome, they are not sufficient to address the larger problem of research fraud. There is a need to have a set of rules and regulations that will clearly outline what plagiarism is and recommend different levels of punishment – including salary cuts and even dismissal – for different degrees of plagiarism. With the adoption of these new rules, higher education in India would have taken an important step towards improving its research culture.

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/faking-it-3/.

Plagiarism is by far the most common form of research fraud and a high-level, UGC-appointed committee in 2014, headed by Sanjay Dhande, Former Director of IIT-Kanpur.

https://mbcet.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/serious-penalties-for-plagiarism-in-research-doctoral-or- post-doctoral-thesis-phdugc/.

There are lot of cases of plagiarism that have been reported in India and if we really want to see Indian Universities in the top 100 list of Universities in the world then we need to develop an eco-system which nurtures genuine high quality research publications and punishes cases of plagiarism and academic frauds. Innovative methods of academic frauds are being developed and regulatory mechanism need to be developed accordingly using digital technologies.

India is passing through an era of transformation with strong will on the part of Government of India to use digital revolution to solve lot of problems that originate due to human greed.

I invite you to present your research papers in the XIX Annual International Conference scheduled to be held on the Broad theme “Digital Revolution: Inventing Future India” from January 5-6, 2018 at New Delhi, India. Kindly give your valuable feedback after going through the research papers published in this issue of DBR.

Rtn. Prof. Ajay Kr. Singh