Research group Vcgate (Vietnam Citation Gateway) of Prof. Nguyen Huu Duc, Dr. Vo Dinh Hieu and PhD student Phan Hai, Hanoi National University have just announced the results of assessing the quality of Vietnamese scientific journals in 2020. The results show that there are over 80% of scientific journals. Vietnamese studies are not in line with international practices.
Only 19.1% of scientific journals are digitized This is the third time the Vcgate team has announced this result (the previous two times were in 2016 and 2018). However, this is the first time the team has evaluated the impact factor (IF) and H-index (cumulative influence) according to international practices. In 2020, there are 83 journals to be considered for inclusion in the Vcgate system and evaluated. Regarding the influence index calculated through the number of citations in 2020 of articles published in 5 years (2015-2019), there are 72/83 journals having an impact index. In which, 42 journals have an index of IF > 0.1; 12 journals have IF > 0.5 and 6 journals have IF > 1.0. Citations are collected from Google Scholar sources, so are often higher than the total number of citations from Web of Science and Scopus sources. The results show that, in addition to journals with international elements, a number of Vietnamese scientific journals are published entirely by internal resources, but have received a very encouraging IF index. 
Source Vcgate However, in general, the quality of our journals is still inadequate, far from the final group of Q4 international journals. In addition, this year Vcgate also announced the results of the H-index survey of magazines. This index evaluates the degree of integration between publication productivity (quantity) and quality (citation count). Accordingly, the Journal of Advances in Natural Sciences: Nanoscience and Nanotechnology of the Vietnam Academy of Sciences has the highest index (H-index = 53). Assessing the general picture for Vietnamese scientific journals, the Vcgate team found that Vietnam currently has over 600 scientific journals (only in the journal system scored by the State Council of Professors, there are more than 600 scientific journals). 400 journals), of which only 1 journal is indexed in the SCIE (Science Citation Index Expansed) database and 8 journals are included in the ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index) of the Web of Sciences; 10 Scopus journals and 18 journals are indexed in the ACI (Asean Citation Index) database. These are very modest numbers compared to other countries in Southeast Asia. According to GS. Nguyen Huu Duc, Vietnamese scientific journals also do not follow international practices, from format to presentation. As for the standard, which is basically only interested in the form of ACI, Vietnam has only passed 18 journals. The editorial board has not yet been able to diversify geographically, the way in which references are presented, the protocol of the minutes, etc., have not been accepted. In the current digitization context, there are only about 115/600 journals published online (only about 19.1%), of which only 83 journals have relatively standardized websites, compatible with other institutions. international data and indexed in the Vcgate system is a very unexpected and sad result. The Vcgate system has been in operation for nearly 5 years, promoting, encouraging and supporting magazines a lot, but hardly make any changes, don’t know the reason for the resistance. GS. Nguyen Huu Duc also said that not digitizing will make magazines self-limiting readers to find them. “Without readers, that means there will be no citations and thus, the journal’s influence on the scientific community is very low,” Prof. Huu Duc said. The process of evaluating journals by the State Council of Professors is too simple and subjective GS. Nguyen Huu Duc said, while the management of productivity and quality of international publications of Vietnamese scientists and S&T organizations can be done very quickly and conveniently through the Web of Science’s database and /or Scopus, statistics and management of publications published in the country cannot be done. How much does the state spend on research, but it is very difficult to manage and analyze accurately and effectively. The list of journals of the State Council of Professors has more than 400 journals, but the selection and quality assessment is still simple, qualitative and subjective, without criteria and selection process. Prof. Nguyen Huu Duc analyzed, the format and presentation format of many scientific journals in Vietnam are arbitrary, inconsistent and inconsistent with international practices. In particular, we do not have a policy to encourage the evaluation of journal quality by quantitative and specific criteria. GS. Nguyen Huu Duc said that only the Ta Quang Buu Prize and the Nafosted Foundation are interested in important factors of the quality of research works through the assessment of two important indicators, namely the prestige of the scientific journal. having high IF index and having the influence of articles of (with high citation index) If the domestic scientific journals have low IF index, the quality is not properly evaluated, it will also affect the quality of the articles. evaluate the quality of the article in particular and the results honoring scientists in general. Works published in scientific journals are the main database and information to evaluate the productivity and quality of scientific research of individuals and organizations, a measure to recognize titles and scientific awards, staff evaluation criteria… If we don’t pay attention to this, we can only evaluate based on the quality of current journals, the consequences will be immeasurable. Therefore, GS. Nguyen Huu Duc recommended that it is necessary to improve the standardization and digitization of the system of Vietnamese scientific journals, to develop a complete system of Vietnamese citation database, to develop a set of criteria and to use database of the citation system to evaluate the quality of journals.
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