On SCOPUS and Impact Factor

1. Three days ago I met a friend who told me the journal, Tropical Life Science Research (formerly Journal of Bioscience" has been extracted by SCOPUS. I congratulated him and his university.

2. Today I met another friend who thought the demand by the Vice Chancellors of local universities for their staffs to publish their research findings in journals with Impact Factor is over-emphasised. So much so the local journals have been side-lined. After all only two Malaysian journals have IF, one a mathematical journal and the other is the forest science journal. And Malaysia has more than 100 journals, mostly in-house.

3. The surge to get extracted by SCOPUS and SI Thomson has been blown to the levels so unacademic that affect most of the researchers in local universities. If they don't publish they will perish. My friend told me both SCOPUS and SI Thomson are business enterprises. The more we pay attention to these the more they will make money at the expense of the third world universities. THES is also in the same category! The competition to serve THES and other surveys had taken so much academic times and efforts, that could better used for teaching and supervising students.

4. Local universities are supposed to serve the Malaysian communities first and regional communities second, and lastly the global communities. My friend thought we have been serving the global communities at the expense of the Malaysians, and I tend to agree with him. We publish to inform our Malaysian communities not to accumulate personal IF values, though there are scientists who serve themselves.

5. Somebody ought to tell the Vice Chancellors Council of the dungeon we have dug for young academics. The seniors have serve their dues and they are the one who set new rules for the young academics.