ASJP — the Algerian Scientific Journal Platform (Plateforme des Revues Scientifiques Algériennes, at asjp.cerist.dz) — is Algeria’s national portal for hosting, indexing, and managing the country’s academic and scientific journals. It is developed and operated by CERIST (Centre de Recherche sur l’Information Scientifique et Technique), Algeria’s national scientific and technical information research center, under the policy oversight of the DGRSDT (Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique), the government body that sets national research strategy and classifies Algerian scientific journals.
If you are an Algerian researcher, a journal editor, or an international collaborator trying to find, submit to, or verify a journal published in Algeria, ASJP is very likely the platform you need — and it is also, by wide agreement, one of the harder national research portals to navigate on first contact: the interface mixes French, English, and Arabic depending on which journal you land on, login/registration flows are not always intuitive, and the journal classification system that determines whether a publication “counts” for academic credit is documented separately from the platform itself. This guide covers what the platform does, who is required to use it, how to register and log in, how journal classification works, and the points of confusion that come up most often.
What ASJP actually is
ASJP functions as a shared, government-run publishing infrastructure rather than a single journal or a commercial publisher. Individual Algerian journals — across disciplines including medicine, engineering, agriculture, mathematics, computer science, economics, social sciences, and Islamic studies — are hosted on the platform rather than running their own independent websites. In practical terms this means:
- One platform, hundreds of journals. As of this writing, ASJP’s own listings show several hundred active Algerian journals and several hundred thousand indexed articles, spanning most recognized academic disciplines in the country.
- It is trilingual. The interface itself is offered in French (the default), English, and Arabic — but individual journals hosted on the platform may publish in any one, or a mix, of the three languages, which is the source of a lot of first-time confusion.
- It is the operational arm of national journal governance. DGRSDT sets the policy — which journals are officially recognized, how they are classified, which are flagged as predatory — and CERIST builds and runs the technical platform (ASJP) that hosts them and exposes that classification to the public.
Who needs to use ASJP
- Authors submitting to an Algerian journal — most Algerian scientific journals now receive and manage submissions through ASJP rather than email or a standalone journal website.
- Journal editors and managers — running a recognized Algerian print journal, or launching a new institutional electronic-only journal, means working through ASJP’s editorial and hosting tools.
- Doctoral candidates and academics needing publication for career or thesis requirements — Algerian universities generally require publication in a DGRSDT-classified journal (see below) for doctoral defense and academic promotion, which makes checking a target journal’s ASJP classification a required step before submitting, not an optional one.
- Reviewers, evaluators, and international researchers — anyone verifying whether a specific Algerian journal is legitimately indexed, peer-reviewed, and in good standing can check its listing directly on ASJP.
Registering and logging in (the “ASJP connexion” step)
Access to ASJP’s author, reviewer, and editor functions requires a personal account, created through the platform’s registration form rather than through an external identity provider. The login/registration link is labeled Connexion (French for “login”) in the site’s top navigation — this is the exact phrase many first-time users search for, because the interface may load in French by default regardless of your browser’s language settings.
A few practical notes that account for most of the registration and login friction reported by users:
- Check the language selector first. Before hunting for a registration link, use the FR/EN/AR toggle (usually in the header) to switch the interface to a language you’re comfortable navigating in — the underlying account system is the same regardless of which language the interface displays.
- Registration is platform-wide, not per-journal. You create one ASJP account, then use it to submit to, or manage, any journal hosted on the platform — you do not need a separate account for each journal.
- Role matters at signup. The registration form typically asks you to identify your role (author, reviewer, journal editor) — this determines what you can see and do after logging in, so pick the role that matches why you’re on the platform.
- Password/account recovery goes through the platform, not CERIST’s general helpdesk. If registration or login genuinely fails after trying the steps above, ASJP’s own support channel ([email protected]) is the correct first point of contact — it is specific to the platform rather than CERIST’s broader IT services.
How a journal gets onto ASJP
ASJP does not accept just any journal that applies — integration follows one of two defined pathways, and understanding which one applies to a given journal explains a lot of the platform’s structure:
- Existing print journals recognized by DGRSDT. A journal that already has DGRSDT recognition can be integrated onto ASJP once its editorial team/managers have completed CERIST’s platform training — this pathway is for journals migrating an established print publication onto the shared digital infrastructure.
- New electronic-only journals from national institutions. A university, research center, or other national institution can launch a journal that exists only on ASJP, without a prior ISSN or EISSN — an EISSN (electronic ISSN) is assigned by the relevant national body once the journal is approved for the platform.
This two-track structure is why some ASJP journals feel like digitized versions of long-running print titles while others are clearly platform-native and electronic-only — they arrived through different doors.
The DGRSDT journal classification system (A, B, C — and why it matters)
One of the most-searched aspects of ASJP is journal classification — often searched as “revues classées A” or “revues classées B.” This is worth being precise about: the classification itself is a DGRSDT determination, not something ASJP assigns independently — ASJP is where you look the classification up, and where you can filter and browse journals by category, but the criteria and the underlying decision belong to DGRSDT.
Based on DGRSDT’s own published criteria, the tiers run roughly as follows (highest to lowest):
- Category A+ — journals indexed in the Web of Science with an Impact Factor placing them in the top tier of their specific micro-discipline.
- Category A — journals indexed in the Web of Science with an Impact Factor, without necessarily reaching the A+ top-tier threshold.
- Category B — a national-level tier below A, covering journals recognized by DGRSDT that do not meet the Web of Science/Impact Factor bar for A/A+; DGRSDT publishes the specific criteria and current list.
- Category C — journals with a registered ISSN, an active peer-review committee, publicly accessible abstracts, and an established, regular publication frequency, but without international indexing.
- Categories D and E — lower tiers: D covers journals without a formal peer-review committee (working papers/preprint-style outlets with accessible abstracts); E covers popular-science or general-audience (“vulgarization”) publications rather than peer-reviewed research journals.
Why this matters in practice: DGRSDT-classified A and B lists are what Algerian universities check against for doctoral thesis defense eligibility and academic promotion criteria — and DGRSDT explicitly excludes journals or publishers on its own predatory-journal list from counting toward those requirements, even if a journal is nominally classified A or B. If you are choosing a journal to publish in for career or thesis purposes rather than just to disseminate research, checking both the classification and the predatory-journal list before submitting is the safer sequence, not an afterthought.
ASJP’s own journal-search interface lets you filter listed journals by classification category (visible in its URL parameters as clas=A, clas=B, clas=C, and so on) and by subject domain, which is the fastest way to check where a specific journal currently sits.
Common points of confusion
- “ASJP” and “DGRSDT” get used interchangeably, but they are not the same body. DGRSDT is the government research directorate that sets classification policy and recognizes journals; ASJP/CERIST is the technical platform that hosts and displays them. A classification question is ultimately a DGRSDT question, even though you’ll usually check it on ASJP.
- The interface language does not tell you the journal’s publication language. Switching ASJP’s own interface to English does not translate the journals hosted on it — most Algerian journals publish in French or Arabic, with a growing but still minority share in English.
- A journal being “on ASJP” is not the same as being classified A, B, or C. Being hosted on the platform is a technical/administrative fact; classification is a separate, DGRSDT-determined quality tier. Always check the classification field on a journal’s own ASJP listing rather than assuming hosting implies a particular tier.
- Registration errors are frequently a language-toggle or browser-cache issue, not an account problem. Before contacting support, try switching the interface language and clearing cached form data — this resolves a meaningful share of reported “Connexion” failures.
Frequently asked questions
What does ASJP stand for?
ASJP stands for Algerian Scientific Journal Platform (in French, Plateforme des Revues Scientifiques Algériennes) — the national platform hosting and indexing Algeria’s academic journals, run by CERIST under DGRSDT’s policy oversight.
Is ASJP the same as DGRSDT?
No. DGRSDT (Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique) is the government directorate that sets national research policy, recognizes journals, and assigns their A/B/C classification. ASJP is the technical platform, built and operated by CERIST, that hosts those journals and lets researchers browse, submit to, and verify them online.
How do I log in to ASJP (“ASJP connexion”)?
Use the “Connexion” link in ASJP’s top navigation at asjp.cerist.dz, after switching the interface to your preferred language (FR/EN/AR) if it hasn’t loaded in one already. You need a personal ASJP account — one account covers all journals on the platform, not a separate login per journal.
How is a journal’s classification (A, B, C) determined?
Classification is a DGRSDT determination based on published criteria — broadly, A+/A require Web of Science indexing with an Impact Factor, B is a national-recognition tier below that, C requires an ISSN, active peer review, and regular publication frequency without international indexing, and D/E sit below C. DGRSDT publishes and updates the official lists; ASJP lets you look up and filter by a journal’s current category.
Is publication on ASJP required for a doctoral thesis defense in Algeria?
Algerian universities generally require publication in a DGRSDT-classified journal for doctoral defense and academic promotion, and most classified Algerian journals are hosted on ASJP — so checking a target journal’s current classification on ASJP is a necessary step in that process. Confirm the specific requirement with your own institution, since exact thresholds can vary by field and university.
What if my target journal isn’t listed, or I can’t tell its classification?
Search for the journal directly in ASJP’s journal directory, which is filterable by classification category and subject domain. If a journal genuinely can’t be found or verified there, treat that as a reason for caution — DGRSDT also maintains a predatory-journal and predatory-publisher list, and journals on that list are excluded from counting toward academic requirements regardless of any classification they claim.
Related CASRAI resources
For background on the broader concepts referenced above, see CASRAI’s entries on ISSN, peer review, predatory journals, DOI, and open access, or the broader scholarly publishing hub.
