The president of Thompson Rivers University says getting ahead of predatory journals continues to be a topic.

Brett Fairbairn says as the school is setting its priorities for the coming years, the focus remains on publishing in research in high-quality journals.

“People who kind of evaluate that are the faculties themselves, and that really is a case of the kind of academic freedoms that universities are built on. And the faculty sets the standards for their own disciplines and keep in mind things like the kinds of places to publish different fields of research,” Fairbairn says.

TRU professor Derek Pyne was suspended last summer after publishing research that claimed half one faculty, made up of three dozen teachers, had used predatory journals to advance their careers. The school had said Pyne’s suspension was unrelated to his research but acknowledged those journals are an issue for schools everywhere.

Predatory journals allow papers to be published illegitimately which help teachers further their careers, but those journals can be hard to tell apart from legitimate journals according to some industry professionals.

“I would say quality is always on our minds. It’ll be on our minds as we plan for our future, and when it comes to discussions about quality of research and of teaching, it’s the faculties who lead those discussions.”

The school is in the process of updating its strategic priorities for the years ahead, and Fairbairn says the school is looking for feedback from the general public as it sets its vision.

He anticipates the new priorities to be in place in about a year.

“Well you know, every now and then in the life of a university, it’s time to sort of pause and think and take stock in what the future holds, and that’s what we’re doing at TRU. So this is a moment to think about where the institution is heading, what the university’s going to work on next, what its priorities will be for the coming years.”

The public can give feedback on the Envision TRU page here.