Misplaced rejoinder lacks support by Flor Lacanilao

"In his "Strange phenomenon: A response to Lacanilao" (Inquirer, 04/11/2011), Dr. Ramon Guillermo disagreed with several points in my commentary, "Democratic governance impedes academic reform" (03/14/2011). I showed that the use of peer judgment has been a major cause of declining academic performance in the Philippines; but this has been reversed by the use of objective measures. Guillermo challenged my article concerning the use of valid publication and citation counts (objective measures), but he discussed only their misuse instead of the useful information they provide."

"The assessment tools are the ISI-indexed journals and the ISI indexes. These are internationally accepted indicators. They are widely used measures of research and S&T performance. His objections, however, centered on the misuse and abuse of data concerning publications in ISI-indexed journals. The usefulness of a tool -- like the kitchen knife or the gun -- can only be as good or as bad as the purpose or the person using it."

"Dr. Guillermo favored the prevalent practice of peer judgment and democratic governance, instead of ISI measures, citing historical and emotional events of nationalist struggle for democracy and academic freedom. He failed to show how these relate to peer judgment or enhanced academic growth, like improved research and teaching. On the other hand, using hard data, I showed that the introduction of ISI measures improved research output after decades of decline."

Read the rest here: Misplaced rejoinder lacks support by Flor Lacanilao

Philippine Monitoring and Evaluation Society responds to former U.P. Visayas Chancellor's comments on "grey literature"

(Editor's note: The email rebuttal below was sent to us last night by Mr. James Santos of the Philippine Monitoring and Evaluation Society in response to an earlier email sent to us by Dr. Flor Lacanilao arguing that the PMES' Commission on Higher Education sanctioned seminars on thesis writing in U.P. Diliman were promoting "grey literature" instead of focusing on international standard peer-reviewed submissions to reputable journals (see: Former U.P. Visayas Chancellor criticizes CHED-sanctioned Pilipinas Monitoring and Evaluation Society workshops as promoting grey literature). Meantime, Dr. Lacanilao's recent writings on academic governance has also recently been critiqued by Dr. Ramon Guillermo of the Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature (see: In praise of the Dictatorship of the Highly Published). The original PMES seminar series announcement can be accessed at this link.

Dear Prof Florlaca,

Prof. Romeo Santos cannot respond yet to your mail, as he is still in Paris through an invite from the French Evaluation Agency -for an annual meeting of international evaluators. Being part of his Secretariat and on his behalf, let me initially react to your letter.

First of all, let me say that we, in the PMES and WorkLand M&E, have a high regard for you and truly respect you -being an accomplished researcher, scientist and academician. In fact, Prof. Santos has from the very beginning broached the idea of approaching you and invite you to be one of our Consultants or Instructors in the seminar series that we are offering. We believed that due to your expertise and the Cause that you have been espousing vigorously in the media, we may find a noble way together of contributing concretely to the betterment of the society, which is our common desire. We continue to believe that we share the same aspiration.

However, as we have stated in the past, although we support most of your grand ideas, let me say that we kindly detract from some of your thoughts. We, in these organizations, firmly believe that we cannot accomplish much improvement in the society if the Cause we are advancing is done through adversarial and put down manner. ‘Each of us has a stake in each one of us’, and we need all and everyone’s contribution, regardless of their level of intelligence, accomplishment and expertise, to help improve the country. To put down others who are of lesser ‘pedigree’ is not good for the society as whole. We particularly believe that a strong sense of Common Good is what we lack to move forward -and so values that support it shall be cultivated. We cannot attain this if we become dogmatic in our appraisal of ourselves, much more if we readily dismiss others as unfit because they do not measure up to the standards we personally believe in. We cannot readily make a strong conviction for or against something [or someone] we do not know much in the first place. To do so would be a betrayal of the ideals we hold so dear in our field. You, as a scientist, would not infer adversely about something you do not have yet complete knowledge of [or information], would you? Otherwise, it would either be bigotry or a senile way of thinking.

Read the rest here: http://diliman-diary-sidebars.blogspot.com/2011/04/continuation-of-philippine-monitoring.html

Former U.P. Visayas Chancellor criticizes CHED-sanctioned Pilipinas Monitoring and Evaluation Society workshops as promoting "grey literature"

(Editor's note: We are posting the following dispatch from former University of the Philippines in the Visayas Chancellor Flor Lacanilao who just sent us this short critique of an ongoing Commission on Higher Education and Development-sanctioned research and thesis writing seminar at U.P. Diliman which he says increases instead of reduces the incidence of "grey literature" in the Philippines)

By Flor Lacanilao

I got this message today on Research and Thesis Writing Seminar, which has been endorsed by the CHED Chairperson in her Memo to  ALL CHED Central and Regional Office Directors, and All Presidents/Heads of Public and Private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

(Editor's note: see the link to the seminar here)

It is yet, sad to say, another example of how the CHED has been doing damage to Philippine higher education (this seminar highlights the CHED part of my recent review on Basic Problems of Philippine science and education). Any academic scientist will see this by just reading through the announcement below and attached. 

For example, one learns to do academic research properly by doing it properly, as mentored by well-published scientists. Those who try to learn it through how to write a thesis are among our numerous unpublished or improperly published faculty members (gray literature authors). Note that some leading graduate schools in America, Europe, and Asia have done away with thesis requirement, and require instead publications in peer-reviewed international journals. (See also Training graduate students).

Further, the Seminar program does not list the lecturers, except for the Main Lecturer: Romeo B. Santos, Ph D, Professor, UP Diliman, etc., etc. I could not find any research publications by him in journals covered in Science Citation Index or Social Sciences Citation Index.

Why this is going to be held in UP Diliman campus, and to think that the CHED Chair is UP's Board of Regents Chair, say a lot about the state of research in UP.

(Dr. Flor Lacanilao obtained his Ph.D. (specialization in comparative endocrinology) from the University of California at Berkeley. He served as chairman of the Zoology Department at UP Diliman, chancellor of UP Visayas, and chief of SEAFDEC in Iloilo. His email address is at: florlaca@gmail.com .)