Specify Your Journal to be Indexed by Scopus
The Criteria for journals you manage to be indexed by Scopus, it must be specific. However, getting your UII journal indexed by Scopus is not a matter of specific names, but of scope. Of course, consistent use of English is also a major requirement.
“To be indexed by Scopus, it is not a matter of the name of the journal. But the content. In English, reviewers and writers are also plural,” said Dr. Lukman, ST, M. Hum, Secretary of the Central Java Region VI of Higher Education Service Institute, in the UII’s Journal Training, on January 12th, 2021, via Zoom Conference.
Heri Sudarsono, manager of the Journal of Islamic Economics & Finance, guided the training with the theme “Improving Journal Management Quality Towards SINTA 2 Accreditation and the SCOPUS Index”.
Lukman also said the key to penetrating the Scopus index was to pay attention to two things. First from a technical point of view: the quality of the style and format editing. Then the second is in terms of substance: quality of content and writing ideas.
According to him, what is meant by being specific for Scopus indexing is not a matter of name, but the specific scope of it. “Even so, it would be nice to make a specific journal name,” he added later.
Consistency in technical editing and substance of writing seems to be the first step even when you want the journal to be indexed in any index. The neatness of journal management, clarity of functions among journal managers, the duties of editors, and clear duties of reviewers are also requirements for journals to become references for the authors.
The management of the Asian Journal of Media and Communication (AJMC) has also shown consistency. This international journal in Communications Department has been indexed by Copernicus. The step towards Scopus, as Lukman said, is certainly a little easy step forward. Apart from that, the AJMC journal is already in English consistently and involves various foreign writers. Meanwhile, the Jurnal Komunikasi (UII Communication Journal) is heading towards re-accreditation towards indexed by Sinta 3 (National Journal Accreditation index level 3) in the coming months.
Participants also asked Lukman, as an expert on publications and journals at the Ministry of Research and Technology / National Agency for Research and Technology about the role of editors and reviewers and consistency in editing journal manuscripts. According to Lukman, editors can write in their own journals, as long as the reviewers are not themselves. But you should avoid writing in your own journal, so don’t only dare at your own turf, Lukman explained.
Lukman added that the editor’s job is to make writing so that it is technically pleasing. “Correction of conformity with the environment is the task of editors, not reviewers.”
Meanwhile, reviewers check whether the writing has a state of the art, has an impact and in a nutshell, “reviewers make their writing easy to read, not check semicolons and language style,” said Lukman.
Participants are also expected to learn from examples of journals that have been indexed by Scopus. For example in the use of cross-linking. Journals indexed by Scopus / Elsevier must have Cross-linking, he said. Cross-linking links refers to their original sources. “You can see and imitate the elsevier journals’s standard, how do you see it in the manuscript,” said Lukman.
Shouldn’t the journal manager change the writing style? Another question arose. According to Lukman, it is permissible for journals to change their writing style, but it must be consistent.
Then if everything has been fixed, consistency has been carried out, what are the next steps? “If the provisions are in place, immediately check the readiness and submit it on “Ready for Scopus” website, immediately. But don’t be sure without all the preparations and register at Ready for Scopus, it will be rejected,” said Lukman. “Most journal incidents in Indonesia arose, so yesterday there was an impression that Indonesia must be careless, hopefully it was not from UII.”
Lukman gave a closing message and impression to the training participants who were all journal managers at UII. “Ladies and gentlemen, must understand the instruments in Arjuna and the provisions of Sinta. It must be consistent, thorough, and observant. Between one volume and the next, whether the writing is consistent with the style, writing, and quality of the editing with an affinity. Be careful.”
