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EDITORIAL |
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Year : 2020 | Volume
: 28
| Issue : 4 | Page : 199 |
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Academic promotion criteria: Success or fail?
Cenk Demirdover
Department of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Medicine, Izmir, Turkey
Date of Submission | 05-Sep-2020 |
Date of Acceptance | 09-Sep-2020 |
Date of Web Publication | 28-Sep-2020 |
Correspondence Address: Prof. Cenk Demirdover Department of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Medicine, Izmir Turkey
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
DOI: 10.4103/1300-6878.296484

How to cite this article: Demirdover C. Academic promotion criteria: Success or fail?. Turk J Plast Surg 2020;28:199 |
Each university determines its own criteria for academic promotion. In some countries, the criteria defined by the national health authorities might be quite different than that of the universities. However, all these criteria can be summarized in the following categories:
- Academic publication and research activities
- Teaching, learning, and assessment activities
- Professional achievement and activities
- Enterprise.
The quality and the quantity of the publications have been examined by predefined academic councils. The easiest part is checking the required number of publications. However, examining their scientific quality is time demanding. There are many different indicators, such a H-index, age-weighted citation rate, the Eigenfactor score, and author impact factor, to determine the author citation metrics.[1] Any publication getting numerous citations in journals with a high impact factor shows the candidate's scientific power. On the other hand, the requirements might be fulfilled by predatory publishing. The academic council who checks the promotion criteria may fail to find out the truth. The ethical principles should be considered in each publication.
Teaching experience for a certain amount of time (e.g., at least for a semester) is required for academic promotion in many universities. However, the candidates may provide certificates of the one-time given lectures to replace teaching requirements. This situation would certainly mislead the academic council.
Participation in national and/or international congresses, symposia, and conferences is one other important criterion to be examined. The continuity is more valuable compared to the recent participation.
Key Factors for a Successful Academic Promotion | |  |
- Publishing for the science, not for the academic promotion
- Creating real solutions for the problems of the humanity
- Perfectly meeting the authorship criteria
- Publishing in well-known journals with high impact factor
- Having high citation rate for each publication
- Avoiding any predatory publishing
- Avoiding any type of plagiarism [2]
- Following ethical principles
- Continuity in publishing
- Avoiding participating in any predatory congress
- Teaching regularly (at least for a semester)
- Training young academicians.
Failing in Academic Promotion | |  |
- Publishing for academic promotion
- Publishing fabricated scientific data
- Having pointless research findings
- Authorship without any contribution
- Publishing in journals where publication fee is present instead of an editorial process
- Having low or no citation rate for each publication
- Predatory publishing
- Involving in any type of plagiarism
- Ethical violation
- Consecutive publishing just prior to academic promotion
- Participating in any predatory congresses
- No involvement in teaching and/or training actions.
The academic council that evaluates candidates' scientific background plays a particularly important role. The end of science starts when unmerited academic titles are given. All the academicians are responsible for the purity of knowledge.
References | |  |
1. | Hirsch JE. An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2005;102:16569-72. |
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