Asian Crime and Society Review

The Association of Legal & Political Studies (ALPS) wishes to inform its stakeholders of an update regarding the application of the Asian Crime and Society Review (ACSR) for inclusion in the Web of Science (WoS).

ACSR was initially submitted for WoS indexing consideration on July 30, 2024. Recently, ALPS received notification that ACSR has not passed the Web of Science Editorial Triage step. The Web of Science Editorial Team identified the following areas for improvement:

1. Website Functionality/Journal Format: The journal website lacked a direct link to the Association of Legal & Political Studies (ALPS), the publisher. To ensure transparency, the inclusion of this link was deemed necessary. Additionally, the available ThaiJO user manuals for authors and reviewers were only available in Thai, while the journal publishes in English.
2. Presence of Ethics Statement: The existing Publication Ethics statement was considered to overlap with those of other publishers (e.g., Elsevier). A revised, in-house developed statement was recommended to demonstrate the journal's understanding and ownership of its policies and processes. Furthermore, citations to external guidelines (e.g., COPE, WAME, etc.) required direct links to the referenced documents.

In response to this feedback, ALPS has implemented the following revisions to the ACSR website:

1. A direct link to the ALPS website (as well as to White Tiger Legal Business and Research Consultants Co., Ltd., the Co-publisher) has been added to the "Ownership and Management" section of the "About the Journal" page.
2. Given the absence of official English-language ThaiJO user manuals for authors and reviewers, the link to the Thai-language ThaiJO manual has been replaced with a link to the English-language Open Journal Systems (OJS) documentation provided by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) of Simon Fraser University, from which the ThaiJO manual was translated.
3. The Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement has been entirely rewritten, drawing from the journal's existing policies and practices, with updated information and comprehensive citations and links to relevant resources.

With these improvements now complete, ALPS intends to resubmit ACSR for a second round of consideration by Web of Science on May 1, 2025. We appreciate the ongoing support of our authors, reviewers, and readers as we work towards achieving this important milestone.

The Editorial Team