Research in Malaysia - again

Given that SPM results are out, it is not surprising that Malaysian universities and colleges are putting up advertisements to recruit students.  Most of the universities and colleges in Malaysia claimed that they are world class.  This is hardly surprising as Malaysia's deputy prime minister believes that Malaysian education is indeed one of the best in the world, better than American, British universities.

One way to judge a university is probably through their publications.  So I randomly picked a private university in Malaysia which published its research work http://sunway.edu.my/university/research/publications . I guess the university will put up their research if they are proud of their research work.  So how do our so called one of the best university in Malaysia fare? in 2011, there are about 6 papers in the whole university.

They did much better in 2010, although I was surprise to find this publisher "LAP Lambert Academic Publishing". I mean their so called Professors don't even know that LAP Lambert Academic Publishing is a scam????? Come on, take a look http://chrisnf.blogspot.com/2009/06/academic-spam.html or http://www.writingnetwork.edu.au/content/email-lap-offering-publish-my-masters-thesis

Another interesting thing I find is that the whole publication in the university, is not even more than a single person in some universities in let's say Hong Kong or Singapore.  More importantly, look at the type of publications produced by people in these universities http://www.polyu.edu.hk/mm/mm_dev/content.php?id=1&content=area&aid=76 , yes, we are talking about MIS Quarterly, Journal of Marketing, Management Science, these are the journals that are ranked as among the top journals in the world, and is in the Financial Times Top 40 journals.  So do we still think we are world class?

Sadly, in Malaysia, we just like to make ourselves feel good with illusion that we are doing great research.

Guardian UK University Ranking

This is the latest UK University Guide 2012 by Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2011/may/17/university-league-table-2012 . It is interesting to note how some post 92 universities such as Oxford Brookes and Sunderland are ranked better than traditional universities such as Liverpool University and Bradford. Will give more comments on this later.

Increasing your H-index overnight?

The recent article by Jacso titled "Google Scholar duped and deduped- the aura of "robometrics" published in Online Information Review, Vol 35 No. 1 presented an interesting insight as to why H-index, in particular the one computed by Google Scholar, is not a reliable tool. Google Scholar and tool such as those by Anne-Wil Harzing's Publish or Perish are used by some academics and universities as a tool for calculating their research impact. However, Jasco showed an interesting case whereby a researcher created a fake author – Antkare I., and generated 100 "fake" papers using SciGen (a software that generates fake computer science manuscripts using all the IT technical jargons to make the paper look as if they are genuine, the interesting thing is that some of these papers were actually accepted by conference!). Anyway, these fake papers in turn cited each other's paper. I guess you know the outcome, within few months, once these papers and citations were captured by Google scholar, and Harzing's Publish or Perish which is based on Google Scholar, the fake authors Antkare received a total citations of 9626, thus giving him the computer scientist with the 2^nd highest number of citations! So for those universities that based their promotions on google scholar, think twice.

H-index anyone?

As part of the games to improve universities ranking, many university administrators are starting to look at the H-Index. According to my reliable source Wikipedia, The h-index "is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other people's publications". According to a recent report, universities in Singapore use H-index to determine the appointments of professors in certain discipline.

However, H-index is a dangerous tool. This is reflected in the recent surprise ranking of Alexandria University, which is ranked top 200 in the world, whereby its professor Mohamed El Naschie is accused to have manipulated his citations. More can be found here on how H-index might not be a trustworthy tool for measuring a scientist's actual impact: http://francisworldinsideout.wordpress.com/

Fake Degree in Malaysia

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• I am not sure if using fake titles is considered a crime in Malaysia. However, what if the title misleads the public? Richard Li claimed that he graduated from Stanford years ago, and when it was found that he did not graduate from Stanford, it create quite a big hoo-ha. So does this apply to only famous people?
  
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• Mr. Peter Yee claimed that he has a DBA from Golden State university, and the "Dr" title was given for his major in Investment Management. Now he is providing property advice on The Star, and of course he runs workshops in Malaysia as well. Unfortunately, Golden State University is a degree mill, and there is no such actual university. Please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_State_University or http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.aspx
  

  
  

  Q&A: Will I have to use years of rental income to cover initial repairs? | StarProperty Malaysia
  

  Now what is ironic is that in 2009, the Star had an article "unmasking degree mill and bogus varsities" and here they are, having this guy with a fake DBA providing advice to the readers. Well done The Star, well done Star Education Fund. Malaysia boleh.
  

UK universities at risk?

With the cut in subsidies, many UK universities seem to be at a high risk of being closed down. The recent report from The University and College Union (UCU) showed that at least a third of the 130 universities in the UK are at risks. More at http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/t/a/ucu_universitiesatrisk_dec10.pdf

Will this influence students' choice in selecting which British universities to pursue their studies?

Is it worthwhile to do a PhD?

Well , the Economist seems to think that it isn't. They have an interesting article that probably kills the aspiring young graduates' hope of pursuing a PhD

http://www.economist.com/node/17723223