STEDEX '09

Breaking the Glass Ceiling of S&T Publications | A Design Perspective

INTRODUCTION


The pursuit of excellence among academicians is pressuring design researchers to publish in high impact journals. Writing and publishing are becoming mantras at research universities and enforced in performance appraisal by university’s management. It is becoming very obvious that any school of arts or built environment in the nation’s research universities are at the bottom if not almost at the bottom. The purpose of this feature article is to debunk the S&T myth that writing and publishing a journal article is the only way to increase citation-indexed articles for a research university. We are arguing that there is an alternative way to achieve similar publication goals that are equally rigorous but in line with the background nature of design works.

This feature article highlights a valuable knowledge gem somewhat obscure among design schools which existence since 1977 has been taken for granted by many design-and humanities-based academicians worldwide. The knowledge gem is the arts and humanities indexes. This feature article describes how design schools could take advantage of them and obtain equal recognition for design researchers as per their peers in science or social science fields. Hence, allowing design academicians to contribute in creative ways to boost the citation-indexed need for supporting a research university.

This is the story about initiatives by the Faculty of Design and Architecture, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) to increase its citation-indexed articles as we wish to share with colleagues in Malaysia and other parts of the world. This feature article will first present the background problems among design academicians and our approach to inculcate design research at the faculty. Then, it will describe the highlights of the available arts and humanities indexes before explaining the strategies to meet citation-indexed quality publication. It concludes with recommendations on how research universities could overcome the pain of dealing with the unconventional nature of design academicians compared to their colleagues in other established science or social science fields.


RAHINAH IBRAHIM
OSMAN MOHD TAHIR

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