What is a Good Journal? Perceptions of Vietnamese Early-Career and Mid-Career Researchers

Publishing papers in good journals is important for researchers’ reputation and career. This paper aims to investigate the perceptions of early-career researchers (ECRs) and mid-career researchers (MCRs) on the factors and attributes that make a good scholarly journal. Data were obtained from 488 Vietnamese researchers using survey method. Descriptive analysis of the survey data demonstrates that the majority of the researchers believe that a good scholarly journal is from well-known publishers and indexed in Web of Science or Scopus. Also, such a journal has good impact factor, high rank, outstanding editors and editorial board members as well as publishes articles written by famous researchers. Comparative analysis reveals that ECRs have stronger beliefs that a good journal has simple submission procedure and is responsive to authors’ queries, whilst MCRs show greater beliefs that a quality journal has good indices measuring its impact and high rank. These findings have several implications for key stakeholders including publishers and editors in the development and marketing of their journals.