Guidelines for assessment of publications for contribution to scholarship: a view point

Background: There does not seem to be a uniform method of assessment for promotion in the various tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The result of this is that a professor in one institution may just qualify to be a senior lecturer in another in the same country. An attempt is being made in this write-up to devise a method of standardization for promotion in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Method: Literature dealing with peer review process, writing clinical research papers, and assessment were reviewed. Also various methods of assessment for promotion in some tertiary institutions were studied. Results: There are six areas of assessment of the publications of a candidate for academic promotion. They are (a) the quality of the journal where the article were published; (b) the type of research; (c) the scientific quality of the paper; (d) the relevance of the paper to the author's discipline; (e) the numerical position of the authorship of the candidate being assessed; (f) and the number of publications. Conclusion: Having a clear-cut and more objective way of grading a prospective candidate will ensure uniformity, allow the candidate to work realistically towards a goal and to aim high, reduce subjective assessment, reduce the chances of injustice, and encourage non-indexed local journals to aspire to get indexed or die a natural death.