Compliance of education journals in Vietnam with the minimum criteria to be indexed in the ASEAN Citation Index and Scopus

This study aimed at elucidating the present situation of scholarly journals published in Vietnam according to the minimum criteria to be indexed in the ASEAN Citation Index (ACI) and Scopus, with the goal of suggesting development strategies for scholarly journals in Vietnam. From the 387 journals accredited by the Vietnamese State Council for Professorship, 13 education journals were arbitrarily selected, and their compliance with the five minimum criteria for the ACI (peer review, timeliness, abstracts in English, references in Roman script, and a website in English) and the six minimum criteria for Scopus (peer review, timeline, abstracts in English, references in Roman characters, Electronic International Standard Serial Number [ISSN], and publication ethics) were assessed. Two of the 13 journals were eligible to be indexed in the ACI, while none fulfilled the minimum criteria to be indexed in Scopus. An urgent task for the editors of those journals is to establish an informative journal homepage in English that provides basic information on the journal. Then, an Electronic ISSN can be obtained from the ISSN International Center. Furthermore, the following steps are suggested for journal promotion: establishment of appropriate editorial policies and publication ethics procedures, improvement of research integrity, enhancement of the journals’ reputation in the international scientific community, and improvement of the online publishing system by adopting a journal manuscript management system. To achieve those goals, financial support from the Vietnamese government will be invaluable.