Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1988, 35(1), 20.25

OUR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY JOURNALS -CAN WE NOT IMPROVE THEM?

Scientific and technological journals are univer-sally accepted to be a vital element of modernS and T activity. This is the single most impor-tant medium through which researchers com-municate and interact with one another, and theyhave great influence on the nature and directionof S and T research being carried out. They playa major role in defining a community of researchworkers, according to their field of specialisation,language and nationality. As the journals are,like Academies etc, organised largely on a nation-al basis, they also serve the purpose of giving anational identity to the different scientificcommunities. It is generally the case that theproductivity, purposefulnes and originality of theS & T research done in a country can be quitereliably gauged from the S and T journals in acountry. Thus an analysis of the quality ofjournals in a country is a very important wayof comprehending certain vital aspects of theSand T activity of that country.

Like in many other fields, India since inde-pendence has made, in quantitative terms, re-markable strides in the area of publication ofS and T periodicals. These periodicals are pub-lished by various agencies like academies, insti-tutions, universities, research laboratories andgovernment departments. From about 725 in1964 the number of S and T periodicals inIndia has grown to 1593 in 1975 and 1891 in1982. It can be assumed that we were publish-ing about 2000 of them in 1985 [1]. Leavingout the popular science magazines and reportsof Rand D establishments, there are 488 scienti-fic periodicals which are covered by IndianScience Abstracts. The break-up of 22,000papers pu blished in 1984 is roughly, 29% inagriculture, 21% in medical sciences and 16%each in biological, physical ane engineering sci-ences. India produces about half of the S and Toutput of the entire third world and these publi-

20

B. VISWANATHANDepartment of ChemistryIndian Institute of TechnologyMadras 600 036.

and

C.N. KRISHNANDepartment of ElectronicsMadras Institute of TechnologyMadras 600 036.

cations cover all areas in which research is beingconducted in the advanced countries. A recentpublication of CSIR [1] , summarises the positionof India in this connection as follows:-

'India accounts for about 3% of the world'sscientific literature output and about half of theentire Third world's. In terms of the number ofpapers published in more than 4000 of world'sleading scientific and technical periodicals,India occupies the eighth rank after the USA,the UK, the USSR, Japan, France, West Germanyand Canada. Clearly, India is not merely theundisputed leader of Third World Science, butalso occupies a respectable place in the World ofScience as a whole'.

Having thus reached a status of significance inthe publication of Sand T journals, it is necessaryto evaluate our performance in this field quali-tatively. Some of the vital aspects are :

1) How good are our S and T journals as com-pared to those of other countries?

2) What is the evaluation of these journals bythe Sand T community of our country aswell as by that of the rest of the world?

3) What is the communication level reached bythe journals among the Sand T commu-nity?

4) Do these journals project a national identityto our Sand T community?

Unfortunately we do not possess any satis-factory answers to these questions at all: we havedone very little analysis and investigation in ourcountry on these questions. We have not evenbuilt up a data base of our own regarding theoutput of our scientific research in various areas.

Ann Lib Sci Doc

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY JOURNALS

Even the Indian Science Abstracts only givedata about publications in Indian journals, andthere is no way to know as to what has been thetotal output of research work done in India inany given field. In the absence of comprehensivedata-base we do not have a realistic assessment ofwhat we have achieved in scientific research sofar. While pointing out the urgent need forbuilding up such a data-base and undertakingextensive analysis of such data, the purpose ofthe present paper is limited to a critical exami-nation of the already existing data and analysis l.of Indian Sand T journals. Our primary aim isto examine how good our S and T journals areand what could perhaps be done to make thembetter.

The limited studies that deal with our SandT journals [2-9] are mainly based upon the database built up by Institute for Scientific Infor-mation (ISI), USA and the methodology de-veloped by Eugene Garfield. The three key para-meters used for the evaluation of an article or ajournal are the 'impact factor' (defined in terms 2.of the number of times a particular article iscited in other articles within a specified timeperiod; for a journal, it is the average value of theimpact factor of all the articles in that journal),'immediacy ·index' (governed by the number oftimes it is cited' in the same year of publication)and the 'percentage citedness' (percentage of the 3.ratio of the articles in a journal that are cited tothe total number of articles in that journal).ISI data-base is tuned to evaluate the scientificjournals and articles in terms of contributions towhat it calls the 'international body of scientificknowledge'. The main concern of ISI is with whatit terms 'International Science' and not with the 4.Sand T of the third world.

In the year 1973, ISI data base scanned about3,000 journals out of which only 52 (lessthan ~%)originated from third world; of the 3,53,000articles it surveyed in that year only 16,000(less than 5%) were }rom third world. Further, 5.the data base of 1973 showed that about 80%of articles originated from US, the developedcommonwealth and west European and Scandi-navian countries and this situation is not likelyto have undergone any major change. Out of the52 journals from third world (1973 data-base)about 30 journals are from India with 7,888articles out of the 16,000 articles originatingfrom third world. This makes India the eighthlargest country in terms of scientific output. Itis to be noted that about 65% or the 16,000

Vol 35 No 1 March 1988

articles from the third world were published injournals of the developed countries.

As stated earlier, the ISI data base is skewedin favour of the USA and UK and under-repre-sents the scientific output of India, USSR,Japan as well as the entire third world. Inspite ofthis shortcoming, the conclusions that seem toemerge from the analysis [2-9] of these dataare significant:

India stands eighth in terms of the quantumof scientific output and contributes about3% of the world's scientific output. Amongthe third world countries, India's contribu-tion is nearly 50% in terms of scientificoutput. Indian scientists tackle problems inalmost all scientific fields and their contri-butions come 'close to those of the developedcountries'.

An average value of 2 was obtained for theimpact factor for the period 1973-78 forarticles originating from India which is lowin comparison with that of advanced coun-tires (US 6.9; UK 6.3; FRG 4.6; Japan 4.1)as well that of 30 other third world countries.

Indian journals had the highest impact factor(1.1) amongst all the third world journals;however this value was very low comparedwith journals of developed countries (US 6.9,Developed Commonwealth 5.5, West Europe3.9, Japan 2.9).

Most of the references made to Indian jour-nals are by Indians. It appears that the rest ofthe world S and T community has hardlytaken any serious notice of our journals.

The majority of references cited in thearticles of Indian journals are to papers thatare more than 10 years old, thus giving avery low value to the immediacy index.

6. Indian journals have poor inter-disciplinarycontent.

This analysis had led to two broad conclu-sions. Firstly, that the quality of our scientificoutput is poor, from the point of view of con-tributions made to the socalled international

21

VISWANATHAN & KRISHNAN

science*. The second conclusion that emergesfrom this analysis is that our S and T journalsare of poor quality which is the prime concernof this article.

An interesting phenomenon noticed was thatnearly 60% of the scientific output of the thirdworld researchers appeard in the journals of thedeveloped countries. As compared to this, coun-tries like France, Western Europe as a whole,Japan and Germany contributed only 5%, 12%,20%, and 33% respectively to the journals pub-lished outside these countries [10]. No othercountry or region suffers such a high drain of itsscientific output. This affects the evaluation ofthe scientific journals of the third world soadversely that these journals carry a low impactfactor of 0.8 when the third world scientiststhemselves had an impact factor of 2.3.

As far as India is concerned, our journalsreceived only 44% of our scientific output, therest went to foreign journals [2]. Studies haveconsistently shown that more than half of India'sscientific output is sent abroad [7] and in thisregard at least, the 'undisputed leader of thirdworld' [1] is not setting an example worthy ofemulation .by others. The consequence of thiswas that while Indian research output publishedabroad achieved an impact factor of about 3,our own journals I could achieve only 1.1. Itshould be quite obvious from the above thatIndian S and T journals are quite poor todaynot because the science done in India is as suchvery poor; this is so because most of the outputof our research is denied to our journals. Thisis indeed a situation that ought to be and canbe; improved significantly. For that, we shouldfind out more details about how such a situationhas come about. For example, is it that ouryounger researchers are more 'foreign crazy'and they are refusing to follow the patrioticexamples set by the senior scientists? Is it a case

of our younger generation going astray? Whatsort of traditions were being set up by the peersof Indian science and leaders of our scientificcommunity? We present some representativedata that throws some light on these questions.

Indian National Science Academy (INSA)has recently brought out two volumes contain-ing detailed profiles of its Fellows as on1986 [11] which have some data relating to thepublication patterns of these scientists. EachFellow was asked to give a list of what he orshe considered to be his/her important contri-butions to science. Table 1 shows an analysis ofthe data generated from 441 responses (out of530 Fellows, each with 15 papers on an average)which shows that in no discipline did the Fellowscontribute even half of what they considered tobe their important papers to Indian journals,the average figure being 34.4% which is evenconsiderably poorer than the 'national average'of 44% ! In some disciplines like Physics, thecontribution to Indian journals was as low as21%.

Let us also present some data on the publi-cation pattern of the members of the editorialboards of representative journals in two dis-ciplines namely, physics and chemistry. Thejournals we chose are India's leading physicsjournals - Pramana and Indian Journal of Pureand Applied Physics and for Chemistry - IndianJournal of Chemistry Section A and B. The num-ber of scientists covered was 68 and 23 respectivelywith a contribution of 514 and 213 articles in therespective disciplines. It was seen that for thetwo year period 1983-85, these two groups ofscientists contributed only 32% and 30% res-pectieely of their papers to Indian journals. Inother words, even those who are in charge ofimproving the standards of our journals do notseem to have any serious commitments towardsIndian S and T periodicals. The pattern that

*That our scientific research or our scientific journals do not have any significant impact on world science, or that theworld scientific community does not perhaps think too high of our work need not by itself have caused us muchworry if our Sand T community had seen itself as working towards some other identified goal. For example, if itwere the case that our Sand T community saw itself primarily asworking towards fulfilling our country's needs andnot being overly concerned with making contributions to world science, then such an evaluation could perhaps havebeen dismissed as being of no great consequence. But as is well known this is perhaps not the case, and being a partof the international scientific enterprise and making significant contributions to it have all along been claimed to bea vital dimension of all our Sand T efforts.

For the sake of being considered a part of the international Sand T community, we even choose most of ourresearch problems from abroad. A recent study has shown that about 90% of all references cited in Indian journalsare to articles in foreign journals[3 J. Such being the case, an assessment that our contribution to international sci-ence is of rather poor quality ought to be a matter of serious concern.

22 Ann Li b Sci Doc

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY JOURNALS

Table 1

Publication Profile of 1986 Fellows of INSA(Numbers in bracket are percentages)

--------------------------------------------------------Subject No. of Scientists Total Indian Foreign

publications publications publications----------------------------------------------------------Mathematics 37 527 159 368

(100) (30) (70)

Physics 64 966 201 765(100) (21) (79)

Chemical Sciences 67 1091 283 808(100) (26) (74)

Engineering andTechnology 43 670 245 425

(100) (37) (63)

Earth Sciences 41 660 327 333(100) (49) (51)

Plant Sciences 47 846 353 493(100) (42) (58)

Animal Sciences 30 509 174 335(100) (34) (66)

Medical Scienbes 44 792" 284 508(100) (36) (64)

Agriculture, AnimalHusbandry, Fisheries 37 616 272 344

(100) (44) (56)

Total 410 6677 2298 4379(100) (34.4) (65.6)

evolves out of this analysis may perhaps be re-presentative of the inclinations of our seniorscientific personnel. It is apparent that the prob-lem lies with the examples and models set up bythe leaders of our Sand T community.

That our S and T journals are in poor shapeis not merely of national prestige; it has seriousrepurcussions on the functioning of our entireS and T community. In a sense, it merely reflectsthe state of affairs on our S and T front. Forone thing, our journals today do not serve as aneffective medium of communication among ourSand T workers, which is the primary role of ajournal. Whatever communication exists amongour scientists seems to be routed through the

Vol 35 No 1 March1988

medium of foreign journals. Such a situation doesnot help in the emergence of our S and T com-munity with a national identity. Secondly, thisdispersion of our research output in a verylarge number of world's journals prevents us fromhaving an overall view of what exactly is beingachieved by our scientists. Furthermore, if thecompulsion for publishing in foreign journalswere to be removed, then it may be possible thatwe turn our attention to those problems whichare of greater concern and relevance to ourcountry. This may lead in some way to makeour own unique contribution to the pool ofworld's knowledge. Another advantage of chang-ing over to publishing primarily in our own

VISWANATHAN & KRISHNAN

journals would be that our scientists would beginto take the other fellow scientists of the countrymore seriously. By making Indian scientists moreresponsible in assessing each other'.s work, thecollective sense of dignity and self respect of theentire community as such are enhanced. And soalso their collective strength and bargainingpower vis-a-vis the international scientific com-munity.

Surely, there are various reasons why ourscientists today do not prefer to pu blish inIndian journals. The circulation figures for theIndian journals are almost of the order of 1000in comparison to circulation figures for 'Nature'and 'Science' which exceed 60,000 and 150,000respectively. Other difficulties include lack ofproper and rigorous refereeing procedures, un-certain periodicity, absence of journals devotedto particular specialised area, long delay betweensubmission and publication, poor quality ofproduction, etc. However, these things couldall be improved once our S and T communitybecomes seized of the problem. But from whathas been said earlier, it is clear that the initiativehas to come from our senior scientists.

While it may be true that our junior scientistswould be taking greater 'risk' by not publishingabroad, the same cannot be said of our seniorscientists - they have already acquired inter-national standing and recognition. They shouldbe willing to make the 'sacrifice' of increasinglydiverting their publications to Indian journals.If, OUI senior scientists start publishing as a ruleall of their important works in our own journals,there is no doubt that the state of our journalswould start showing significant improvement.That we do not give the better part of our re-search output to our journals is not the conse-quence of our journals being poor, it is the verycause of it.

These points are no new revelations! Infact the case for having our own journals and ourscientific community publishing in them canperhaps not be better expressed than in the wordsof C.V. Raman himself. While founding our firstmodem scientific Academy viz., the IndianAcademy of Sciences, Raman wrote in theCurrent Science of May 1933, 'It is true thatindividual scientific workers in India have by theirindefatigable industry achieved great distinctionfor themselves, but the prestige of both officialand non-official research is still slow in attainingthat status of international importance reachedby most European countries. This unsatisfactory

24

position is in our opimon partly due to thetendency of scientific men to export their moreimportant contributions for publication in foreignjournals with a proportionate impoverishment ofIndian archives ..... Continuance of this practicewill retard the process of building up a scientifictradition for India and keep her in a position ofsemi-dependence in the world of scienceIndia will have to organise and develop hernational scientific institutions before she canenter into the comity of international scientists'(emphasis added).

This attitude, as reflected in the words ofProf. Raman, had to some extent, made ourscientific journals of the thirties and the fortiesachieve higher standards internationally. This canbe gauged by the fact that, in the days of Raman,many of the Indian journals like Proceedings ofthe Indian Academy of Science (30th in 1944),Indian Journal of Physics (73rd in 1944) hadsufficiently high standing in the internationalrating. Further an analysis of 33 of the 125founding fellows of INSA for whom the datawere immediately available (12) revealed theinteresting fact that they had published nearly77% of their research works in Indian journalseven though at that time those journals could nothave been as well supported and developed astoday. It would be farfetched to conclude thatthese founding fellows of INSA were less reputedscientists than say any of our present day topscientists.

REFERENCES

1. Status Report of Science and Technology in India,CSIR, New Delhi, 1986.

2. Garfield E : Mapping science in third world (part 1and 2). Current Contents 1983, (33), 5-15, andCurrent Contents 1983, (34),5-16.

3. Arunachalam S : Citation counts as indicators ofscience and technology capacity of third world.Paper presented at the annual meeting of theAmerican Association for the Advancement ofScience, 26-31 May, 1985. Los Angels, USA.

4. Arunachalam S and Markanday S : Science in themiddle level countries: a bibliometric analysis .ofscientific journals of Australia, Canada, India andIsrael. Journal of Information Science 1981, 3, 13-26.

Ann Li b Sci Doc

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY JOURNALS

5. Anlnachalam S : j oumal in India - their relevanceto international science. Science Today 1979, 45-50.

6. Anlnachalam S : Why is Indian science mediocre?Science Today 1979, 8-9. Information: the neg-lected dimension of science of India. ScienceToday 1979, 11-15.

7. Rangarajan K S and Gupta B M : Analysis of choiceof journals for publication by Indian physicists.journal of Library and Information Science 1979,4(2),144-161.

8. Lancaster F M, Mehrotra R and Otsu K : Some pub-lication patterns in Indian and j apanese Science:A bibliometric comparison. Int Forum Inf and Doc1984,9(4),11-16.

Vol 35 No 1 March 1988

9. Gupta B M, Nathan S S : Scientific aDdtechnolop-cal joumalJ in the developing countrie.. ILA Bul-letin 1979, 15(1-2).

10. Garfield G : journal of citation atudie. 26, LatinAmericanjoumala. Current Contents 1976,37.

11. Profiles in scientific research, contribution of theFellows Vol. I and II. Indian National ScienceAcademy, New Delhi, 1986.

12. Biographical Memoirs of Fellow of the IndianNational Science Academy, Vola. 1-11, INSA,New Delhi.

25