PhD-education in a 'publish or

perish' perspective

K. K. HaugenMolde University College

NORWAY

The 1st. Research School ConferenceNHH – Bergen, August 28-29, 2009

Outline

• Focus on scientific publishing as a part of PhD-education

• Is it good?

• Does it produce better PhD’s?

• If not, why?

• What to do…..

”publish or perish”

Publish or perishFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Publish or perish" refers to the pressure to publish

work constantly to further or sustain a career in academia.

The competition for tenure-track faculty positions in

academia puts increasing pressure on scholars to publish

new work frequently.

”publish or perish”- the origin

OriginFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The phrase is thought to have originated around 1950 with,

Dr. Kimball C. Atwell III, then a geneticist at Columbia

University. Ironically, Atwood never published the phrase

himself; thus, evidence of his coining the phrase remains

anecdotal. As the story goes, Atwood had only to wait a month

before he heard it delivered in an address by a visiting lecturer,

who afterward told Atwood he heard the phrase from a participant

in Atwood's originating conversation.

’Research’

• Answers to previous questions needsome notion on what research and hence (PhD) - research education is about

• Personally I would like:

– Research: 90% creativity

10% publishing

PhD’s now and before

• Now: 4 papers, published either at conferences or (best) in scientificjournals

• Previously: A monograph totally unpublished (just like mine finished in 1991)

The publishing process:

• Lengthy – a typical example (one of my relatively recent papers):

– Initial submission: 5/10 – 2005

– Referee reports (2): 10/2 – 2006 (not bad!)

– Resubmission: 23/5 – 2006

– Referee reports (accept): 22/2 – 2007 (rather bad!)

– Proofing: 11/4 – 2007

– Back and forth: 15/2 – 2008 (not typical!)

– April 2008: Published! (not bad at all)

≅ 3 years : PhD scholarship 3-4 years

Publishing – consequences (1)

• The fact that it takes time, of course makes

up some obvious logistical problems for PhD-

students; it is perhaps better to go for a ”bad”

journal or a special issue?

• Both would normally increase acceptance

probability as well as minimize process time.

(a ”good” strategy?)

Publishing – consequences (2)

• Far more serious:

– Again, my sample is limited, but in my experience,

none (of more than 20 papers I have written and published) have changed at all (as a consequence

of refereeing) related to:’

• Ideas

• Methodolgy

• Mathematical modelling

• Conclusions

Publishing is not creative

• Hence, I would say that the publishingprocess itself is the opposite of beeingcreative. I would use words like:– Boring

– Detailed

– Lengthy

– Tedious

– Not funny at all

Modern PhD’s

• 3,4 or 5 papers. Many have been throughconferences some are published, typically in bad journals, supervisor is very often co-author on most papers (who has done what?)

• Very few ideas, typically, one basicmathematical model described in differentways with small tweaks and twists in differentpapers

• Is this good research? Is this a system making good researchers? Where are thegood ideas?

Conclusions:

• I am very sceptical to the kind of PhD-

education we seem to observe today• Keep creativity by minimizing publishing within PhD-

programmes.

• Let PhD-students take chances, risk something, and even fail.

• Be extremely careful with supervisor co-authorship.

• ”Publish or perish” comes soon enough – after the PhD-defence.

• Let the ”young” (and still) creative students be creativewhile they (still) have the potential.