The Effects of Changing Criteria for Academic Ranking Request of The Lecturers in Khon Kaen University

Abstract

This study intends to analyze how changes to the academic title request criteria have affected professors' requests for academic titles at Khon Kaen University. Focus groups and in-depth interviews were used to gather data. 17 people made up the major informant group, including 1) university administrators, 2) professors, and 3) staff members in charge of submitting applications for academic jobs at both the departmental and university levels. By extracting the essence and elucidating the meaning, the information was studied.  The results showed that the change in the academic raking request’s criteria affected the university lecturers, especially the request for a specific academic field. The effects can be described in 3 issues as follows: 1) the criteria and procedures were changed frequently and suddenly, this caused confusion to the lecturers. In addition, the lecturers did not pay attention to the change of criteria for a specific academic field because they are familiar with requesting academic ranking by using research works;  2) the university continuously provided workshops, mentoring system, and academic promotion fund for supporting the lecturers to request academic raking, but still lacking a mechanism to promote the request for a specific academic field; and 3) the lecturers lacked of motivation to request for a specific academic field because they concerned about the new criteria and the blinded peer-review committees as well as academic ethics for academic raking request. Importantly, the examples of a request for a specific academic field are still lacking. To improve the effects of this policy, the university and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation should promote the academic raking request, especially the specific academic field and regularly enhance the understanding of the university’s lecturer for the new criteria and procedures.