FACULTY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES
To: Registrar
From: Dean, Faculty of Medical Sciences
Chairman Complex ‘C’
Ref:
Date: 19 April 2005
I write on behalf of my Faculty to acknowledge the receipt of your kind memo on the above subject matter. But my Faculty Board members will like to know if this has been approved for use by Council. If not, can we still make some input since we had not been given this opportunity to see the document until now? I however note that the administration expects that we implement it now for the 2003/4 appraisal exercise. But my Faculty members are unanimous in requesting special review of some of the criteria (see enclosed).
Qualification
1. Page 144 paragraph on Qualification, section v gives FWACP, FMCP FRES FRCP ARCON CORBON etc, which are professional qualifications of Consultants in Medicine, 5 points while it awards PhD 8 points. This is not in keeping with standard practice in most schools that we all know. The postgraduate qualification of Consultants are at par with a PhD. In most British system also, MD is considered a higher doctorate and therefore superceeds even a PhD for professional qualification for it stands at the same level with other higher doctorates such as DD, D Lett, DMus and DSc. I am very worried that our own rating is unique in the entire world and wonder whether University of Jos wishes to have its own independent academic system. If that be the case, we must at least debate it and make it a concensus.
Peer-review
Secondly I, as Chairman of Complex see a very worrisome trend. I see that we must score abstract 1 point, monographs and even book reviews. As you are well aware, anything that is not peer reviewed in the scholarly arena amounts to nothing for it is quite possible to copy any book and present it as either abstract or research monograph. But once peer reviewed it is expected to be fit for scholarly comsumption. Hence the practice in all schools that I know is to ignore unrefereed materials and concentrate on refereed ones in any promotion exercise. But that does not preclude the individual from placing any such material on his CV. Indeed they do have a pride of place in CVs. It is the same tenor that the NUC in its recent publication addresses the problems- this was widely circulated in the University in February 2005
Weeding out Poor Quality Journals from the Nigerian University System and Eliminating Academic Self-Publishing
‘Scholarly journals are periodicals whose goal is scholarly communication: providing the means by which scholars and researchers share their findings with one another and with the public. Such journals have a number of distinguishing features. Chief among these is a peer review mechanism for assessing the quality of research/scholarship hence they are sometimes referred to as ‘refereed’ or peer-reviewed.” This means that they have rigorous approval and editing process in which experts in the field evaluate articles using criteria including the statement of the problem to be solved, methodology of solving such problem, accuracy and interpretation/discussion of results, and contribution to knowledge. Scholarly journals use this process to protect and maintain the quality of materials they publish
Number of authors and indexed journals
Again the NUC had cause to complain about self-publishing in the same Monday memo as above. Our journals are simply too local. In another memo of 21 February 2005 we noticed that University Jos scored one of the lowest on quality of scholarly research output using the same 2004 World University Ranking exercise for research indicator. World exercise articles were selected from indexed journals in world data bases. Unless we begin to address the issue of indexed versus non indexed journal articles in the course of promotion, we will always remain under. This should, in my opinion, be the basis of scoring articles and not number of authors. In today’s research world, number of contributing authors does not count because solo publications are now in the minority and indeed not strongly encouraged, at least in the sciences.
Based on the above sir, I must therefore, on behalf of my Faculty and Complex, request the University to have another look at the document for promotion, with a view to addressing those areas that might cause us problems when those in our academic profession look at us outside our domain in world that is getting more and more sophisticated by the day.
Many thanks
Thanking you sir
Professor Oluwole Ogunranti
Dean, Faculty of Medical Sciences
cc Prochancellor and Chairman of Council
Vice Chancellor
Professor A Malu (Chairman)
DVC (Academic)
Faculty Board Members