ACS Omega

The American Chemical Society (ACS) introduces a new open access journal, ACS Omega. ACS has another purely open access journal called Central Science but they are very selective and will publish only 200 papers a year, unlike PLOS One that publishes ~200 papers in 2 days.

In the press release, it is stated, "ACS Omega will publish articles on the basis of rigorous technical review rather than subjective editorial or reviewer opinions of the work’s significance or impact. .....are introducing an agile and seamless manuscript transfer system that will enable authors submitting to one ACS journal to be easily referred for review and publication in another suitable ACS journal, should their paper not be accepted by their first-choice forum. "

Thus, if your manuscript is rejected by any of the other 50 journals of ACS due to poor novelty or impact, you will be asked to transfer it to ACS Omega. You can pay and publish (assuming, of course, that your manuscript is scientifically sound). Read about the discussion here.

This is similar to other journals (megajournals) such as Scientific Reports by the Nature publishing group, AIP Advances, IEEE Access, Springerplus, Heliyon of Elsevier and the forerunner to all of them, PLOS One.

I am sure that many authors from India will pay from the CPDA grants for these open-access journals. After all, they are published by Nature and ACS. 

This is not to be confused with RSC advances, which requires significant advance and impact. RSC advances started as a transfer journal for RSC but immediately rose up the ranks. In 2015, it received more than 50000 submissions and accepted around 25000 papers and published 100000 pages. The reason for the large number of submissions to RSC advances is because it is NOT open access.

Tenure

I have been asked frequently about the introduction of the tenure system in IISc. There are no official notices in this regard and I guess it may have been discussed with the chairmen of the departments. Therefore, what I say below is based on what I know and what I have been told by others.

Currently all faculty who have joined before August 1, 2015 were given a five year contract. At the end of 4.5 years, they were asked to submit their papers in the format given in the following link. If the performance was not satisfactory, they were given a two year extension. Then they were asked to submit the performance form again and given tenure or extended for a further two years. This continued till the tenure was granted at some point. No one was asked to leave.

All faculty joining after August 1, 2015 will be given a five year contract. At the end of 4.5 years, they will be asked to submit their papers in the format given in the following link. I guess some feedback will be given to the faculty at this stage. At the end of 5 years, all the faculty will be given a terminal 3 year contract.

At the end of 5.5 years (extendable to 6.5 years ??), the faculty will be asked to submit their papers again. The faculty will suggest 8 referees (4 Indian and 4 foreign) and the department will suggest 8 referees (4 Indian and 4 foreign) and this list is sent to the divisional chairman, who will pick up 8 names from this and send your details to these referees. Once the comments are received, these will be discussed by a promotion and assessment committee. This committee consists of all six divisional chairmen, the associate director, director and 8-12 very eminent scientists from India, who do not belong to IISc. The case will be considered by this committee. Either they will be promoted to Associate professor with tenure or the contract will be allowed to expire and the faculty has to leave by the end of 8 years.

This seems to be the procedure. I have been asked frequently is what will be the criteria for tenure. I guess it will be depend on the criteria (research, teaching, consultancy/service) given in the form. Some of the new faculty who have been offered have been explicit in asking the following 

"Professors in the west have to continuously get research funds in order to just maintain a lab (sometimes even paying rent and electricity bills) and pay the students. Many are forced to work fast and publish fast....
India is faring much better in this regard...Tenure isn't a problem as the job is made permanent after a year. Student evaluations of courses do happen but they're mostly for professors to improve their teaching. They're not a criteria for promotion or salary increment..."

Thus the question boils to this "If other institutions do not insist on publishing research or teaching well and give tenure to all faculty at the end of the first year, why should IISc have a tenure system?" Basically, I do not know but I believe that the tenure will be based on minimal criteria !

Asking me on whether one should choose IISc or IITs that do not have the explicit tenure criteria will not fetch any answers. In case you are not aware, the conduct rules state "No employee shall make any statement of fact or opinion which has the effect of an adverse criticism of any current or recent policy or action of the Institute or which is capable of embarrassing the relations between the Institute and (... government)".