Publish and Stay Imperishable: Scholarly Publications and Pressures of Academia

Going public with publication, surmounting the difficulties and pressures of quantity and quality to fiercely vie for raises, more academic visibility and fame as well as promotions is mostly what drives researchers all over the world particularly university professors. Regardless of the increasing power these forces exercise to publish, few academics actually do. Accordingly, the aim of the present study is to get to the type of sources that push and the hurdles that deter Moroccan research-active academics to yield or to fight back and publish in internationally indexed journals, the way they deal with publish or perish factors, such as stress, burnout, and satisfaction, and the perceived conflict between the teaching profession and research. Though this emerging publish-or-perish culture has ravaged the academic world and classified universities on a scale from the best to the weakest, in Morocco this culture is still not bothering people in charge of higher education especially that the best Moroccan university, Qadi Ayyad in Marrakesh, lies at the bottom of the list worldwide. Thus, for the present research a survey questionnaire was administered to university professors at Ibn Tofail University, Kénitra, Morocco. The study has shown that these individuals have a great awareness of publishing and some of them focused even on doing it at the expense of teaching and in a quick pace over looking quality of their productions.

Keywords: Publish-or-perish culture; academics; academic visibility; quantity and quality.