The study is recognized to be qualified if it is published in a journal involved in a respected index. However, this recognition would not always be true.

In his commentary on April 8^th, Mr. Eyüp Can, Executive Director of Radikal newspaper, wrote that the problems about higher education in Turkey must be handled thoroughly. In this context he talked about some higher education "routines". One was "advancing in the "swimming against the tide" branch by making effort to increase the number of studies quoted in indices without paying attention to the value added created."

I also wanted to write about this routine for long. I will take this opportunity today. Before discussing this routine that I will call the 'index obsession' I will give brief information on the index issue for those who are not familiar.

Academic or non-academic researchers submit their research to academic journals to share their studies. In my consideration, the main reason why serious academics take this path despite low wages is to find answers to the questions in their minds, learn new things in order to ask more meaningful questions and seek answers to those new questions.  One can do this by first understanding the results of the studies conducted by other researchers and then improving those.

The view of referees
This is a highly joyful process: ask an interesting question, prepare a study plan, study that particular issue for days and nights, combine the results in an article, ask the view of other academics that studied the same subject, revise the article into a discussion paper, present it in several platforms, try to face the criticisms which can be harsh from time to time, review the article in the light of the critics and submit the revised paper to a refereed journal.

Oh, that is not all: If it is a serious journal, the paper is first edited by the editor. If it is found to be in compliance with the journal criteria, the editor sends the paper to the referees or otherwise sends the paper back to the author. Then the referees review the article generally after being "poked" by the editor. After reviewing the paper, they give feedback report to the editor suggesting that the paper "cannot be published" "can be published after a comprehensive revision", "can be published after a few changes" or "can be published". After this stage the editor might refer to other referees, if deemed necessary. The final reports are then sent to the author. If revision is considered to be necessary, the process begins from the top.

Some reports, particularly those written by referees that have an "ideological" approach to certain subjects, might be quite tough. But this overall is a highly joyful and exciting process that makes you love your profession.

Measuring scientific quality
On the other hand, academics must have conducted qualified studies in order to be awarded the assistant professor, associate professor and professor titles. Moreover, some universities make performance-based wage assessment for academics where having qualified academic publications is one of the prominent criteria used for measuring quality.

Unfortunately, due to the last two factors, some academics might feel like "they should have a publication no matter what the quality is". Thus, many new journals spring up. For instance, some faculties might issue journals only they read.

Therefore, the problem of measuring the scientific quality of the published studies arises. This quality can definitely be measured by expert bodies. However, this measurement might give way to several other problems. The short-cut "solution" of this problem is to refer to the indices that include only the journals above certain standards. Namely, the said study is recognized to be qualified if it is published in a journal involved in a respected index. However, this recognition would not always be true; it sometimes might prove problematic. 'Index obsession' is a prominent one among those.

This is too much for one commentary. I will continue next Saturday.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 16.04.2011