Roller coaster of publication criteria: What is new in teachers' eligibility qualifications in medical institutions regulations, 2022?

Dear Editor,

The National Medical Commission (NMC) of India has published the “Teachers Eligibility Qualifications in Medical Institutions Regulations, 2022” in the gazette on 22/02/2022. The previous criteria for promotion of medical teachers are replaced with the new one with effect from the day of gazette notification.[1] Starting from 2009, this is the sixth document by apex body defining the promotional criteria. The criteria regarding research publication for the promotion of medical teachers in board specialty from 2009 to 2022 are shown in Table 1.[12]

Table 1

Reverse chronologically presented promotion criteria in regard to publication of a board specialty medical teacher

Notice publication date	Required number of papers		Type of article	Author order	Circulation	Bibliographic database†	Type of journal
	Step 1	Step 2
	22/02/2022	2	2+2	Original paper, Systemic review, Meta-analysis, Case series	Not mentioned	Not mentioned	DOAJ, MEDLINE, PMC, SCIE‡, Scopus, Embase	Not mentioned
	17/02/2020	1	1+2	Original paper, Systemic review, Meta-analysis, Case series, Research project*	1st, 2nd, 3rd, Corresponding	Not mentioned	DOAJ, MEDLINE, PMC, SCIE‡, Scopus, Embase	Not mentioned
08/06/2017	2	2+2	Research publication	1st, Corresponding	National, International	MEDLINE, PMC, Scopus, Embase, Index Copernicus	Printed
03/09/2015	2	2+2	Original research article or Original research paper	1st, 2nd	National/International Specialty journal or Journal indexed in accepted databases	MEDLINE, PMC, Scopus, Embase, Index Copernicus	Printed
04/11/2010	2	2+2	Research paper	1st, 2nd	Indexed or national	Indexed (but no details)	Not mentioned
15/12/2009	2	2+2	Research publication	1st	Published by national association or society of respective specialty	Not mentioned	Not mentioned

*Project funded by national funding agencies in place of the research paper was accepted. †Titles of bibliographic databases were corrected and only available databases are mentioned here. The original notices contain erroneous punctuations to separate the titles of database, obsolete title of databases, and wrong titles. ‡In the notice published in 2020 and 2022, the “Science Citation Index (SCI)” and “Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)” are considered as separate databases. However, the SCI was removed by the parent company – Clarivate Analytics and the SCI database was merged with SCIE (https://support.clarivate.com/ScientificandAcademicResearch/s/article/Master-Journal-List-Removal-of-SCI?language=en_US). Step 1: Assistant professor to associate professor. Step 2: Associate professor to professor (a 2+2 indicates two publications during assistant professor tenure and two publications during associate professor tenure). DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journal, PMC: PubMed Central. Notices from 2009 to 2020 except that one published on 03/09/2015 are available on https://www.nmc.org.in/e-gazette/(MCI-12 (2)/2009-Med.Misc./56925, MCI-12 (2)/2010-Med.Misc./33038, MCI-12 (1)/2017-Med.Misc./115698, MCI-12 (2)/2019-Med.Misc./189334), and that of 2022 on https://www.nmc.org.in/e-gazette/e-gazette-nmc/(CG-DL-E-23022022-233681)

The roller coaster 2009–2022

According to the notice published in 2009, only the first author of a research publication published by national associations or societies of the respective specialties was accepted. Then, in 2010, the second author was also included. In addition, the journals should be either indexed or are circulated at the national level. However, there was no detail about the accepted indexing agencies. In 2015, it was clarified that only the original research article or paper would be accepted where the authors are within the first two authors. This is the time when the bibliographic databases were fixed and only specialty printed journals published by a national or international publisher or journal indexed in those fixed databases were accepted. In 2017, the credit changed from the first and second author to the first and corresponding author. In 2020, the phrases – ”printed journal” and “national or international” – were removed from the regulation. Furthermore, the first three authors and corresponding author were considered for credit. There was a reduction of the required number of papers (from two papers to one paper) for promotion from assistant to associate professor. In addition, more types of articles were included along with the original article. A research project instead of a published paper was also accepted. Index Copernicus was omitted from the accepted database.[3] From 2022, again the requirement of two papers for promotion from assistant professor to associate professor was reinitiated. However, the text about the author’s order was removed from the notice. The changes over time [Table 1] made academicians ride a roller coaster of criteria of promotion!

Potential impact of new regulation of 2022

In the new regulation, the credit for showing a funded research project has been omitted. This may be a disheartening decision to an enthusiastic academician who was relieved from the pressure of publication for the last 2 years. The increment of publication from one to two (returning to two article norms) is another aspect to pressurize academicians further.

Omission of the text about the author order of a research paper may be a beneficial step for teachers. This would help increase collaborative research works involving researchers from multiple institutions. As academicians are aware of the ethical research publication, we presume that the practice of guest authorship would be limited. Furthermore, accepting papers published in journals indexed in only reputed bibliographic databases would surely promote sound research output from Indian medical institutions.

The caution before publication

The NMC omitted Index Copernicus from the accepted bibliographic database in 2020 and provided a 2-year window period. The period has ended on February 16, 2022. Hence, authors should be careful in selecting journals according to accepted databases if it is for promotion. Many sham journals pose to have indexed in a certain database. However, they do not have indexing. The journals may advertise on social media or allure authors by personal emails. Hence, authors should check the indexing before sending articles to the journal. A brief guide on how to check the indexing of a journal is available elsewhere.[4] In addition, there may be a rise in hijacked or disguised journals. In these cases, a fake website with a tweaked web address is made with the same title, ISSN numbers, editorial board members, etc., of a reputed journal.[5] When the authors check the title of the journal in the bibliographic database, it shows a positive search result for the original journal. To identify the original journal website, authors can click on the web links of the journal available on the result page of the bibliographic database. For example, to get the original website of the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology that is indexed in DOAJ, one may search the title on https://doaj.org and click on the “Website” button that would redirect to the authentic journal website.

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Conflicts of interest

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