Ponderings

Its time someone thought of the educational/research system all over again. With the whole world running after rankings, it seems things have boiled down to a mere ball game of numbers. The war between Quality and Quantity has taken its toll with the latter leading so much that even the trails of the former seem 'clearly' obfuscated! The adrenalin rush can be markedly felt with institutions breathing down on themselves and their entities, building pressure to publish more research papers, patents and the like and procreate students who can deliver likewise to take up this baton in the rat race to the top of the academic food chain.

Getting to numbers - for that's what they want!

Research Papers:

I have seen so many who have a range of research papers - several 100s and maybe 1000s - and patents too - plenty of them. Many a time they themselves lose track of their research. IMHO I have faced this problem of remembering work done even with my meagre set of research papers. 

When we look at research papers we find different categories - those with a Single author and others with Multiple authors. The definition of the former is well understood but some evaluators might say - "The author lacks team spirit. S/He seems like a person who cannot collaborate. How come s/he is not able to take up others in his/her research fold? " :-(

As for the definition of the latter, it is vague - there could be 2, 3, 4, 5, ..., n authors. At times the first page in a 2- to 3-page paper is populated with just the names of the authors. I always wondered how so many people could collaborate to work and write a paper that contains so little (quantity-wise;  forget about quality). When I asked a few who had done so, they told me that one author had done the experiment, another had helped in the testing of the work, another had edited the paper, yet another had discussed the content, ... and the others participated or were possibly present during the discussions, ....!! 

So, a group of n people can collaborate to make several papers as long as each one puts the other's names alongside. This way each person could have many papers. Well, that's what networking is all about - possibly the driving force for modern day academic research. It does prove to be an effective way to charge up a CV.

Conferences: Poster/Oral/Ranked and otherwise - Are all treated at par when it comes to listing papers in the CV!

Some research work just cannot be written in the prescribed number of pages (say around 8) due to their complexity. If you cannot express the same in these number of pages you are forced to shell out a huge amount of money for the additional pages - which only a few from elite institutions who have the funding, can afford. The new open access era allows the authors to pay the publisher to make his/her paper accessible to others. This increases visibility and thus citations making it a win-win situation for both author and publisher!  So, indirectly it comes to the fact that if you are rich enough you can have more citations. Somehow it boils down to a pay and publish mechanism! What about institutions who cannot afford to pay or struggle to do so? For them it could be publish and perish!

Publish OR Perish (POP) versus Publish AND Perish (PAP):

I remember of a case where I attended a conference where I published a work done under a funded project. I needed to pay a registration fee for the same, not to mention the expenses incurred in my travel and the stay - all of which came from these funds. Naturally, I had to transfer all copyrights to the publisher. Later, when a copy of the paper was required, I found that needed to pay for the same. So in what way did the funding agency (indirectly, the tax-payer) or me gain from this? The research work was done by me and co-authors, all payments were done from our side and finally to get the official version of the paper again my Institution/me needed to pay for our paper to the same party! In every way money seems to have been funneled out. Though, I gained a paper in the process, (I did not Perish) what did the society at large gain I wonder.  POP thus applies to the researcher while for the tax-payer, it is PAP.

Citations need a separate citation:

Some insist that specific papers be cited in a paper before acceptance to jack up impact factors. Reviewers suggest their own papers to be cited in the revised versions of a paper - merely to increase their citation counts. Reviewers sometimes ask people to cite their papers even though they are not relevant. A journal tries hard to increase its impact factor. More the impact factor, more are the papers submitted and possibly more is the money.

Imagine a certain research paper, where the authors cite other works in the introductory sections as - 

'AAAA has been used in a wide variety of applications [1,2,3,4,5,...]' 

The authors of the papers referred to here all get an increment in their respective citation count, though the paper hardly ever uncovers their work in it! This calls for redefining the term citation. A paper should be considered to be cited if the same is actually being discussed/used/compared in some form in the major portion being described in a paper.

Patents:

Of late, patents, which also form a major requirement in promotions seem to be 'gaining' from a similar back-patting mechanism. Patenting often requires a lot of money to be paid. More the number inventors lesser the cost borne individually. Anyways, just like research papers, who bothers to look at the number of inventors in patents. The rest of the economics, I am sure everyone comprehends. 

Projects:

When I hear of projects, I always wonder why I am reminded of that old adage - A fool and his money are easily parted!  Well, it is not the investigator who is the fool, but the poor tax-payer whose money has been disbursed for the project! The more the projects a person has the better, the researcher is considered to be. Once again, there could be several co-investigators, just as co-authors. The quantum of money allocated or disbursed for the project definitely matters. What does not matter seems to be - What was done with the money! Well, of course, a project results in several papers being published, many candidates receiving their doctoral degrees,.... Great achievements and consequent promotions for the investigators. But, in what way did the tax-payer benefit from his/her contribution? What's more, I have heard (not sure) that the more a disburser disburses, the higher the chances of the person getting a promotion since s/he has done a great job of spending, uh, I mean disbursing it! And well, the most important question: What happens to the outcome of the project if something tangible comes through? (The meaning of tangible in this context is that something of great use has been created and is almost ready for public use/transfer of technology and NOT research papers/patents).  There is really no mechanism in place for the investigator to get it to be used by the masses. Such projects and their inventions die the same way as those that produced some intangible stuffs, giving way to more disbursals and more expenditure. God save the tax-payer!

My conscience hits me, many times over, every time I finish off with a project and find no takers for the technology developed - even the disburser doesn't seem interested. Finally, to keep my conscience from hitting me, I decided to do research with whatever I have.

Funding should be given for research that directly helps the society and/or the already over-burdened tax-payer. And of course, there should be full accountability of every bit spent.