Assessment of Scholarly Publications: Quest for an Internationalised Standard

Abstract

The world is thinking much about globalising the nations into a global village. Ideas like globalised economy, global or common currency, and gradual removal of trade tariffs and reduced restriction human movement. Education is believed to have a role to play. Globalised curriculum is a thought in the direction that education can enhance globalisation. A dimension in the role of education to support this goal is a unified or global standard of assessment of scholarly publications for staffing and promoting academics in tertiary institutions. Scholarly publication is the life wire of an academic. ‘Publish or perish’ is a common saying among academia particularly in Nigeria. This underscores the importance of publishing research reports in the academia.  This paper considered the area of rating and assessing the scholarly publications of the academic. The present rating scales existing among some institutions for the purpose of promotion were discussed. The paper suggested the internationalised or common denomination of assessment in the area of grading and referencing. The benefits of communication with understanding of status, unbiased assessment, and erosion of inferiority-superiority complex were argued in favour of internationalised grading standard. These benefits were considered as opportunity for mobility of an academic across international institutions without relegation of status. Implications of internationalisation of assessment in mathematics education were considered appropriate and can be readily adopted because mathematics is universal.