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A BRIEF HISTORY OF HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE

I. Period of Pre - “HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE”

1. On 29-09-2003, Ho Chi Minh City Semi-Private Open University Newsletter was established, according to the Decision No. 369/QĐ-ĐHMBC. The Newsletter aimed to internally inform and exchange the scientific activities training, co-operation and other activities that have interest mainly to people who participate in, not for publication.

2. On 21-10-2003, the Editorial Board of  Ho Chi Minh City Open University Journal of Science was first established under the Decision No. 394/2003/ QĐ-ĐHMBC. Only one issue was published under the press license No. 179/GP-SVHTT of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Information (now called Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Commu­nication).

3. On 29-10-2004, the Editorial Board of Ho Chi Minh City Open University Journal of Science was re-established under the Decision No.328/QĐ-ĐHMBC. On 17-02-2005, the press license No.60/GP-XBBT was issued by the Authority of Press - Ministry of Culture and Information. During this period, the Journal has published 10 issues with 195 scientific articles.

II. Period of “HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE”

1. On 15-11-2006, HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE was officially licensed by the Ministry of Culture and Information (now named the Ministry of Information and Communication), under the printed license No.169/GP- BVHTT.

2. On 21-12-2009, HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE was granted the International Standard Serial Number code (ISSN 1859 - 3453) by the National Agency for Science and Technology Information of the Ministry of Science and Technology for printed serial publications according to Official Letter 487/TTKHCN-ISSN.

3. In 2011, the Journal established six different specialized journals, publishing both English and Vietnamese articles in three specializations: Economics and Business Administration, Engineering and Technology, Social Sciences. On 09-05-2011, HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE was recognized and scored by The State Council for Professorship and entered into the Scoring Economics Journals List according to Decision No.14/QĐ-HĐCDGSNN; whereby the interdisciplinary scientific works in Economics filed published in HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE is scored 0-0.5 points.

4. On 15-09-2011, the Ministry of Information and Communications re-issued the printed press license under Decision No.1489/GP-BTTTT.

5. On 03-06-2013, HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE was continuously recognized and scored by The State Council for Professorship in four more disciplinary/interdisciplinary fields: Mechanics (0-0.5 points), Philosophy, Sociology, Politics (0-0.5 points), according to the Decision No.16a/QD-HDCDGSNN. In 2016, the list was continuously extended with the recognization for the Journal’s scientific works of Biology (0-0.25 points), Architecture (0-0.5 points), Education (0-0.25 points).

6. On 30-06-2020, according to Decision No.18/QĐ-HĐGSNN, The State Council for Professorship recognized an increase in scientific work scores for the scientific articles published by HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE: Economics and Business Administration (0-0.75 points) and Education (0-0.75 points).

7. On 07-01-2021, the License No.03/GP-TTĐT issued by the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information - Ministry of Information and Communications approved the establishment of HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE’s comprehensive website.

8. According to Official Letter No.34/TTKHCN-ISSN dated 18-12-2020 and Official Letter No.01/TTKHCN-ISSN dated 18-01-2021 of The National Agency for Science and Technology Information - Ministry of Science and Technology, 06 separate specialized journals of HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE was granted 06 electronic International Standard Serial Number codes (e-ISSNs) for online publications and 06 electronic International Standard Serial Number codes (e-ISSNs) for online publications, in particular:

• Editorial Council
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PROCESSES

In pursuit of an efficient, equitable, and uniform article review and evaluation process, HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE (hereinafter referred to as the Journal) employs an average review time policy ranging from 15 to 170 days. This duration encompasses the overall timeline for the article review process, quality assurance checks, and the receipt of feedback from scientists. Specific timeframes for each step in the process are outlined as follows:

I. SUBMISION AND EDITORIAL SCREENING PROCESS

Publishing with the Journal, all submitted manuscripts must be completed scientific research (including all the necessary scientific paper components) and submitted in the correct specification via the Journal online system. The manuscripts must be in compliance with the presented Aims & Scope, Policies and the Manuscript Formating Guide.

The manuscript submitted to the Journal must be original and not published or submitted for publication elsewhere.

All manuscripts must undergo editorial screening. Only the manuscripts that seem most likely to meet our editorial criteria are sent for formal review.

The process of submission includes the following steps:

Step 1: Authors submit their manuscripts through the Journal's online submission system.

Step 2: Authors receive an automated email confirmation from the Journal's online submission system, with content pre-populated to acknowledge the receipt of their manuscript.

Step 3: The Journal's editor conducts an editorial screening of the submitted manuscript within the OJS system. This editorial screening stage includes the following aspects:

• Compliance with the Journal's stated principles and aims.

• Alignment with the specified scope of the Journal.

• Adherence to the Journal's article submission regulations.

• Identification of any author-provided information and compliance with the Journal's specified author commitments.

• Evaluation of the manuscript for similarities in accordance with the Journal's article regulations.

Step 4: Editorial screening results

• Scenario 1: If the manuscript satisfies all the editorial screening requirements mentioned above, the Journal will inform the corresponding author about the result. This point of time is counted as the received date.
• Scenario 2: The manuscripts judged by the editors to be of insufficient general interest or inappropriate content are rejected promptly without external review

• Rejecting: If the manuscript does not conform with the Journal’s Aims and Scope; or the revised paper still does not meet the editorial criteria, or the author refuses to make any adjustments as required.

• Adjusting and re-submitting: In case of an inconsistent Manuscript Formatting Guide, or lack of essential information, a request to supplement, adjust, and re-submit will be sent to the author. This process will be repeated until the manuscript meets our editorial criteria. At this point of time, the author will receive confirmation from the Journal, and also counted as an official received date.

II. REVIEW PROCESS

After the manuscript has undergone through the editorial screening, the manuscript will enter the peer-review process, an essential part of the publication process. 

Step 1: Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief will authorize the editors/section editors to send the invitation to identified reviewers who are selected and included in the reviewer list approved by the Editor-in-Chief. The maximum response time for reviewer is 03 days.

Step 2: Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to our readership are sent for formal review. The Journal has adopted a double-blind review policy. The peer review process is confidential and conducted anonymously; the identities of reviewers are not released. All information will be exchanged through the Journal, if any.

The maximum duration of the review process is 20 days (first round) and 07 days (second round) of receiving a manuscript and accepting the review invitation (in some exceptional cases, it could be either longer or shorter by prior arrangement).

Step 3: The primary purpose of the review is to provide the needed/ essential information to reach a decision. After having the result of first round, the Editor-in-Chief then make a decision, in the light of the reviewers/editors’ advice, among four options:

1. Accept submision.

2. Revisions required.

3. Resubmit for review (second round).

4. Decline submision.

All manuscripts will go through at least one round of review, sometimes two, based on the recommendation from the first reviewer, decided by the Editor-in-Chief.

Authors can track the manuscripts’ status, shown on the status column of the online system. At the same time, the editor will email the review result - the editor’s decision (one out of four options) attached the revision request for the manuscript’s content/format (if it is options (2), (3), and the apparent reasons if it is the option (4)).

Step 4: If the Editor-in-Chief or an authorized editor makes a decision in favor of options (2) or (3) based on the results of Review 1 and Round 1, the author is required to make the necessary edits to the article as per the specified content revision request. The author must complete these revisions within a designated 10-day period. In the case of option (3), a second round of review, known as Round 2, is conducted, and the article re-enters the review cycle, akin to the process in Round 1. When the article undergoes review by 2 or 3 reviewers, the procedure mirrors that of Review 1.

All manuscripts could be reviewed by typically one reviewer, sometimes two or three if particular advice is needed (could be parallelly or serially), determined by the Editor-in-Chief/section editors. All manuscripts go through at least one round of review, sometimes two, based on the first reviewer/editor/section editor/Editor-in-Chief decision.

All decisions regarding review results are displayed in the status bar and notified by email to the authors.

After completing the review stage, the status bar will show "In editing": The manuscript continues to enter the editing stage.

Flowchart for Review Process

III. EDITORIAL PROCESS

After acceptance for publication, the Journal will advise the authors about the format of their manuscripts to ensure maximum clarity/precision and enhance the value of manuscripts in various ways: Copyediting and Proofreading.

To reduce delays and minimize potential errors, the Journal encourage the authors to follow Journal’s the manuscript formatting guide and Article Template to ensure that the final versions are complete and in the correct format. 

Step 1: The Editor-in-Chief designates or entrusts authority to the main editor or section editor to edit a specific article using the Journal's online editing system. The Editor will receive a notification email and will be provided with an account and password if not already updated. From this point forward, the Editor assumes responsibility for editing, monitoring, and decision-making concerning the article until it's ready for submission to the Editor-in-Chief for approval.

Step 2: Upon receiving the review results, the Editor will make discussions (which may involve discussions with reviewers) regarding whether to accept or reject the manuscript, or to request resubmission with revised content and feedback, possibly leading to a second review. The decision-making process should be completed within 3 days from the date of receiving the review results.

Step 3: The authors are required to make edits in accordance with the reviewer's recommendations as well as those from the Editor. The resubmission date is the date when the author completes the editing as per the Editor's instructions and submits it to the editorial office, with an editing window of 10 days starting from the reception of the edited content from the editor.

Step 4: The editor will check the similarity (plagiarism) of the manuscript and send the requests to the authors for revisions based on Turnitin results, if needed, to ensure that the papers meet the standards of similarity.

Step 5: The author is expected to collaborate with the editor to make adjustments according to the Editor's requests; beside the author needs to review the manuscript to ensure it aligns with the necessary criteria for publication approval.

Flowchart for Editorial Process

IV. PUBLICATION PROCESS

When the final submitted manuscript has passed the editing process and got the final confirmation from the author, the manuscript will continue through the publication process. During this period, the author will no longer have the right to withdraw or make any changes to their manuscripts.

Step 1: The section editor transfers the results of the articles that have completed the editing stage before approval for publication. The Editorial Secretary synthesizes the completed articles and prepares a form to submit to the Editor-in-Chief for approval for publication.

Step 2: The Editor-in-Chief, in their capacity as the ultimate decision-maker, reviews the eligibility of the articles for publication in the Journal. The timestamp at which the Editor-in-Chief authorizes the articles for posting is recorded in the article information section.

Step 3: The Editorial Secretary organizes and structures the approved articles, crafting a publication plan encompassing online and print releases, as well as designating publication and article numbers. This plan is then presented to the Editor for final approval.

Step 4: All the publishing work will be done by the Journal (layout, online publishing, printed version check, censorship, legal copyrighting). 

Flowchart for Publication Process

TRAINING COURSES ON ETHICS IN RESEARCH

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE (hereinafter referred to as the Journal) recognizes the significance of research ethics training in cultivating and upholding ethical and academic standards within the research community. To further this objective, the Journal provides researchers with access to a selection of online courses on research ethics. These courses serve as valuable resources for individuals seeking to enhance their understanding of ethical practices in research: 

• Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Online Course by CITI Program

• About Research Integrity for Experienced Researchers

• Research Integrity

• Course on Research Ethics

• Introduction to Research Ethics - Working with People

• Research Ethics - a guide for responsible research with human subjects

• Research Integrity and Ethics eLearning Course by UK Research Integrity Office

• Ethics and Good Research Practice

• Introduction to the Responsible Conduct of Research

• Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices

• Data Management for Researchers

• The courses organized by Ho Chi Minh City Open University.

COPE’S EVENTS

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is actively involved in organizing various events and initiatives related to publication ethics and research quality. Some of the important events and activities regularly organized by COPE include: 

• COPE Conference: COPE hosts annual international conferences that bring together experts and professionals working in the field of scientific publishing. These conferences serve as a platform for discussing ethical and quality issues in publishing, sharing experiences, and seeking solutions to challenges in the field.

• Online Courses and Seminars: COPE offers online courses and seminars designed to provide individuals with the knowledge and skills needed to understand and apply ethical guidelines in scientific publishing. These sessions often focus on topics like ethical review, author management, and handling complaints.

• Webinars and Online Discussions: COPE conducts webinars and online discussions to provide opportunities for its members and the wider publishing community to engage in conversations about ethical and management issues in publishing. These activities help keep participants updated with the latest information and allow them to share research and experiences from experts.

• Reporting and Research: COPE conducts research and publishes reports on ethical issues and publication management. These reports typically concentrate on emerging issues and ongoing challenges in scientific publishing.

• Support and Advice: COPE offers support and advice to journals, editors, and its members in implementing ethical codes and resolving publishing-related issues. They provide email consultations and host online meetings to answer questions and provide guidance.

These COPE events and activities collectively aim to foster a trustworthy, transparent, and ethical environment within the realm of scientific publishing. To participate in these events or learn more, you can visit this link.