Achieving a professorship with proper academic merit: discouraging questionable publishing

In many research communities, discussions about publishing through questionable or even predatory outlets recur frequently. We must address the researchers who publish in these publication outlets, since this problem could be resolved if researchers stopped engaging with these publications. Among the contributing factors for engaging with these journals is the advantage of having more publications and editorial board involvement when a researcher applies for a faculty position or a promotion. It has been claimed that fast tracking promotion using questionable publication outlets is an increasing problem as scholars see the strategy working well for their colleagues. Promotion guidelines are considered vital for the expectations and more specifically pressures and incentives when addressing the issue of questionable journals. Frequently, actions from universities are called for. In this case study from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana new promotion standards were developed to discourage faculty members from publishing in questionable journals. A verification process for all publications submitted for promotion has been implemented. Since the implementation in October 2019, 221 researchers have applied for promotion. Our analyses show that one fifth of submitted publications do not meet the criteria. Furthermore, we do not find correlations with the share of verified publications and college or number of submitted publications. The implications of these findings are discussed.