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| Year : 2015 | Volume
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| Issue : 6 | Page : 653 |
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| Response to editorial on research publication and reward mechanism |
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Manu Raj Mathur
Department of Dental Public Health, Public Health Foundation of India, 4, Institutional Area, ISID Campus, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, India
Click here for correspondence address and email
| Date of Web Publication | 18-Feb-2016 |
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How to cite this article:
Mathur MR. Response to editorial on research publication and reward mechanism. Indian J Dent Res 2015;26:653 |
Sir,
The editorial on "Research, Publication and Reward Mechanism" [1] has highlighted on a very important issue that opens the door for a much larger and pertinent debate on why very few oral health studies are able to make it to high impact journals. Dentistry is a rapidly evolving discipline, and so is dental research. India, with its sheer demographic and geographical size and numerous dental institutions offers great avenues for cutting edge research. Sadly, very minor fraction of this research translates into high impact publications. According to me, there are two attributable reasons for this. The first is the relative apathy toward "Research Methods" and "Research Ethics" in the dental curriculum both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. A methodologically well-conducted research will definitely stand a chance to make it to a good journal and attract more collaborations and funding.
The second issue has adequately been highlighted by Balaji in his editorial. [1] There is an observed tendency to publish quick and many articles for appraisals and career advancement. However, the total number of papers might not account for quality. There is also a debate on looking at "Impact Factor" or "H Index" as an indicator of academic prowess of the author. However, these indices are calculated on the basis of number of citations which can be misleading sometimes. For example, there might only be one paper of the author which has been cited several times skewing his publication indices. There is also an issue of how to differentially calculate these indices for primary and secondary authors.
There is an urgent need for the dental fraternity to translate sound knowledge to actionable research leading to robust publications. Experts in oral health research should provide hands on mentorship to young researchers inculcating ethical practices in them in due course. Along with asking information on reproducibility and validity of results, reputed Indian journals like Indian Journal of Dental Research should ask all the submitting authors to write a short note on what is new in their study, what is the addition to body of evidence and what are the policy implications (if any). The author contributions to an article should be more explicitly probed and clearly mentioned. A good way to judge the academic credentials could be the use of "i10" factor/index. An i10 index is assessed by calculating the number of papers by an author with at least 10 citations. This might be instrumental in encouraging more high impact research.
I am sure that the debate started by Dr. Balaji's editorial [1] will be taken forward, and the fraternity can come up with a concrete action plan for improving the quality of research publications and thereby attracting more funding for dental research in India.
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| 1. | Balaji SM. Research, publication and reward mechanism. Indian J Dent Res 2014;25:142.  [ PUBMED]  |
Correspondence Address:
Manu Raj Mathur
Department of Dental Public Health, Public Health Foundation of India, 4, Institutional Area, ISID Campus, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/0970-9290.176939
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