KARACHI: The recent approval of over 150 journals by Karachi University’s Board of Advanced Studies and Research (BASR) has sparked a controversy within and outside the campus, it emerged on Monday.

According to sources, the BASR, the university’s highest body to regulate research, for the first time, has approved a list of 153 journals and magazines for publication of research.

The list includes in-house journals of the university as well as monthly magazines (one is a college magazine of the Government Islamia Law College, Karachi).

The list (142 publications are related to pharmacy, 10 to Islamic learning and one to law) had apparently been approved without any debate in the BASR meeting, the sources added. While teachers are opposing the process on the grounds that many publications included in the list have questionable status, officials representing the Higher Education Commission (HEC) have also expressed reservations on the issue.

“The universities must consult the commission if they find a need to include more publications in the HEC list as committees with subject experts have been set up to deal with such requests. So after consultation, a list or lists of publications can be approved,” said HEC spokesperson Aayesha Ikram.

Regarding the implications universities might have to face for approving their own list of journals, she said that the commission wouldn’t accept the candidates who were selected for various faculty positions on the basis of their work published in a university-approved journal.

“The university will be asked to give justification for approving its own list of journals. The HEC reserves the right to report such a unilateral action on part of a university to the chancellor. This can also impact their formula for funding which includes quality assurance performance indicator,” she added.

According to Ms Ikram, the commission doesn’t aim to threaten universities rather take them into confidence and policy decisions are taken through consensus. “Our purpose is not to impose our policies but to encourage universities to meet international quality standards,” she added.

Sharing their concerns, teachers expressed surprise over the approval of more than 150 journals in one go that, they said, included many monthly magazines that had doubtful standing. They also said that the BASR didn’t set any standards before according approval to the journals, many of which were not published regularly.

“It’s nothing but an indicator of falling academic and professional standards on the campus that a number of monthly magazines and even a college magazine have been included in the list,” said Dr Riaz Ahmed, a senior university teacher while expressing his fear that the development would further harm the university’s reputation.

Teachers, he said, were also speculating that why so many journals related to pharmacy had been approved in a single meeting.

When contacted, Prof Dr Abid Azhar, a BASR member, said the board had earlier set up committees comprising subject experts to first set standard criteria for journals before preparing a list of publications and later the criteria were circulated among faculty members.

“Our criterion was more or less the same as that of the HEC. The exception is that we haven’t made international indexation mandatory,” he said, adding that the need for preparing the list was felt because many ‘good’ and ‘authentic’ journals were not included in the HEC list.

Answering a question about the status of journals and the inclusion of a college magazine in the list, he said that he was not aware of that.

“I can’t comment on this. The list was approved by respective subject expert committees and only they could explain the reason,” he said.

Replying to a question as to why the HEC was not involved in the process, he said that members of the commission were part of university’s statutory bodies and they were aware of these developments.

President of the Karachi University Teachers Society Prof Dr Syed Jamil Hassan Kazmi said: “The HEC doesn’t bar universities from preparing their own list of research journals. We have selected those journals that are credible but are not included in the Institute of Science index and the HEC-approved list.”