Publication Ethics

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

1. Preamble

Jurnal Pendidikan, Media, Strategi, dan Metode (JPMSM) is committed to safeguarding the integrity, credibility, transparency, and intellectual quality of the scholarly record. The journal recognises that responsible academic publishing depends upon the ethical conduct of authors, editors, editorial board members, peer reviewers, and the publisher throughout the processes of manuscript preparation, evaluation, decision-making, and post-publication stewardship.

The ethical principles adopted by JPMSM are informed by internationally recognised standards of scholarly publishing and relevant guidance issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). These principles are intended to ensure that research is reported honestly, evaluated impartially, and published in a manner that protects academic freedom, participant welfare, intellectual property, and public confidence in scholarly communication.

Any conduct that compromises the reliability of research, distorts the publication process, misrepresents scholarly contribution, or undermines the integrity of the academic record shall be treated as a serious ethical concern. Where necessary, the journal may undertake an investigation and impose proportionate editorial measures, including rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, notification of relevant institutions, or restrictions on future participation in the journal.

2. Editorial Integrity and Independence

Editorial decisions shall be based exclusively on the scholarly merit of the manuscript, including its originality, methodological soundness, theoretical contribution, analytical rigour, relevance to the journal’s disciplinary scope, clarity of presentation, and compliance with applicable ethical standards. Decisions shall not be influenced by the authors’ nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, political orientation, institutional affiliation, professional status, or personal relationship with members of the journal.

The Editor-in-Chief bears ultimate responsibility for maintaining the academic integrity of the editorial process. In exercising this responsibility, the Editor-in-Chief shall consider the assessments of independent reviewers, the recommendations of handling editors, the journal’s editorial standards, and any relevant ethical or legal considerations.

The publisher shall respect the journal’s editorial autonomy and shall not interfere with decisions concerning the acceptance, revision, rejection, correction, or retraction of individual manuscripts.

Editors shall not use their position to advance personal, institutional, financial, ideological, or citation-related interests. They must not require authors to cite publications from JPMSM, their own works, or other sources unless those references are demonstrably relevant to the intellectual development of the manuscript.

3. Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that submitted manuscripts are assessed fairly, confidentially, consistently, and in accordance with the journal’s academic standards. They shall protect the integrity of both the evaluation process and the published scholarly record.

Editors are expected to:

assess manuscripts objectively and without prejudice;
preserve the confidentiality of submitted materials and editorial correspondence;
appoint reviewers whose expertise is appropriate to the subject and methodology of the manuscript;
identify and manage actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest;
ensure that editorial decisions are supported by reasoned academic judgement;
protect authors from discriminatory, abusive, or unprofessional review practices;
refrain from using unpublished information for personal research or professional advantage;
investigate credible allegations of research or publication misconduct;
ensure that corrections, retractions, or other post-publication notices are issued when necessary; and
withdraw from the handling of any manuscript in which their impartiality may reasonably be questioned.

Where an editor has a personal, professional, institutional, financial, or scholarly relationship with an author or the subject of a manuscript, responsibility for that manuscript shall be transferred to another qualified editor who can act independently.

4. Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Peer reviewers perform a significant academic function by assisting editors in evaluating the quality, validity, relevance, and originality of submitted manuscripts. Their assessments should contribute not only to editorial decision-making but also to the intellectual improvement of the work under review.

Reviewers shall provide evaluations that are analytical, constructive, specific, respectful, and supported by relevant academic reasoning. Personal criticism, derogatory language, discriminatory remarks, and unsupported accusations are incompatible with responsible scholarly review.

Reviewers are expected to:

accept assignments only when they possess sufficient expertise to evaluate the manuscript competently;
complete the review within the period agreed upon with the journal;
treat the manuscript, supplementary materials, and editorial correspondence as confidential;
disclose any relationship or interest that may compromise impartiality;
evaluate the research on its scholarly merits rather than the identity or institutional background of the authors;
identify methodological weaknesses, unsupported interpretations, omissions, or inconsistencies that materially affect the manuscript;
alert the editor to suspected plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, or other forms of misconduct;
refrain from using unpublished information, arguments, data, or findings for personal benefit;
avoid direct communication with authors concerning the manuscript; and
refrain from transferring the review assignment to another person without prior editorial authorisation.

Reviewers shall not recommend citations for the purpose of increasing their own citation record or that of a particular author, journal, institution, or research group. Any citation recommendation must be directly relevant to the manuscript and justified by scholarly necessity.

5. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Authors bear primary responsibility for the originality, accuracy, transparency, and ethical integrity of their research. Submission of a manuscript to JPMSM constitutes an affirmation that the work has been conducted and reported in accordance with accepted standards of responsible scholarship.

Authors are expected to:

present research questions, procedures, data, analyses, and conclusions accurately;
avoid fabrication, falsification, selective reporting, and misleading interpretation;
ensure that the manuscript represents an original scholarly contribution;
acknowledge all intellectual, empirical, and material sources appropriately;
avoid simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to another journal;
disclose all relevant funding sources and conflicts of interest;
obtain all required ethical approvals, institutional permissions, and participant consent;
protect the privacy, dignity, and confidentiality of research participants;
ensure that every listed author has made a legitimate scholarly contribution;
obtain the approval of all authors for the submitted and final versions of the manuscript;
provide supporting data or documentation when reasonably requested by the editor;
cooperate with editorial inquiries or investigations; and
promptly notify the journal of any substantial error discovered after submission or publication.

Authors remain accountable for the accuracy and integrity of all elements of the manuscript, including references, tables, figures, research instruments, statistical analyses, quotations, interpretations, and conclusions.

6. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship shall accurately reflect substantial intellectual contribution to the research and the manuscript. Individuals should be identified as authors only when they have made meaningful contributions to the conception or design of the study; the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; the drafting or critical revision of the manuscript; or other substantive scholarly components of the work.

Every author must approve the final version of the manuscript, consent to its submission, accept responsibility for their contribution, and agree to participate in resolving questions concerning the accuracy or integrity of the work.

Individuals whose participation is limited to administrative support, language editing, technical assistance, general supervision, funding acquisition without intellectual involvement, or routine data entry should not be listed as authors. Their contributions may be acknowledged where appropriate.

Guest authorship, honorary authorship, gift authorship, ghost authorship, purchased authorship, and any other attribution of authorship to individuals who have not made a genuine scholarly contribution are prohibited.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the author list, obtaining the approval of all co-authors, coordinating communication with the journal, and confirming that all authors have approved revisions and the final manuscript.

Any request to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be supported by a clear academic justification and the written consent of all affected authors. Authorship changes after acceptance shall be considered only in exceptional circumstances and may require a formal correction if the article has already been published.

7. Originality, Plagiarism, and Scholarly Attribution

Manuscripts submitted to JPMSM must constitute original scholarly work. Authors are required to acknowledge accurately all ideas, arguments, data, words, images, tables, figures, instruments, and other materials derived from external sources.

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the unattributed reproduction of text, ideas, data, images, research instruments, conceptual frameworks, or translations. Mosaic plagiarism, inappropriate paraphrasing, substantial text recycling, and the presentation of another person’s intellectual contribution as one’s own are likewise regarded as unacceptable.

The following practices are inconsistent with ethical scholarship:

direct or verbatim plagiarism;
mosaic or patchwork plagiarism;
unattributed translation;
improper paraphrasing;
plagiarism of ideas, data, methods, images, or instruments;
substantial self-reuse without transparent disclosure;
citation of sources that have not been consulted;
use of fabricated, inaccurate, or unverifiable references; and
reproduction of protected material without appropriate permission.

Similarity-detection reports are treated as analytical instruments rather than definitive evidence of plagiarism. Editors shall interpret such reports contextually by distinguishing legitimate similarity from unethical appropriation.

Where plagiarism is substantiated, the journal may reject the manuscript, issue a correction or retraction, inform relevant institutions, or impose other measures proportionate to the seriousness of the violation.

8. Duplicate, Redundant, and Overlapping Publication

Authors must not submit or publish substantially the same work in more than one journal without transparent disclosure and legitimate scholarly justification. Simultaneous submission of an identical or substantially similar manuscript to multiple journals constitutes unethical publication behaviour.

Where a manuscript derives from a thesis, dissertation, conference paper, preprint, institutional report, or another publicly available work, the relationship between the earlier and current versions must be disclosed. The journal article must demonstrate meaningful intellectual development rather than merely reproduce the previous text.

Multiple publications based on the same dataset may be acceptable where each manuscript addresses a distinct research question, employs a substantively different analytical perspective, and makes an independent scholarly contribution. Artificial fragmentation of a single study into several minimally differentiated publications is unacceptable.

Authors must disclose all related manuscripts that have been published, submitted, or are under consideration elsewhere when such works may overlap materially with the manuscript submitted to JPMSM.

9. Data Integrity and Research Documentation

Research data must be collected, processed, analysed, interpreted, and reported honestly. Fabrication, falsification, selective omission, inappropriate alteration, and misleading representation of data are serious violations of research integrity.

Fabrication includes the invention of participants, observations, interviews, measurements, documents, research activities, or findings that did not occur. Falsification includes manipulating, omitting, modifying, or selectively reporting information in a manner that misrepresents the research process or its outcomes.

Images, figures, screenshots, and other visual materials must not be altered in ways that distort their evidential meaning. Any necessary technical adjustment must preserve the integrity of the original information.

Editors may request raw data, research instruments, interview transcripts, observation records, statistical outputs, ethical approval documents, consent forms, or other supporting materials where such documentation is necessary to assess the reliability or integrity of a manuscript.

Authors are expected to retain relevant research documentation for a reasonable period following publication, subject to ethical, institutional, legal, and privacy obligations.

10. Research Involving Human Participants

Research involving human participants must be conducted in accordance with recognised ethical principles, applicable institutional requirements, and relevant national regulations. Authors are responsible for ensuring that participant welfare, dignity, autonomy, privacy, and safety are adequately protected.

Where required, approval must be obtained from an authorised research ethics committee or institutional review board before the research is undertaken. The manuscript should identify the approving institution and approval reference where such information is available.

Authors must ensure that participation is voluntary and based on adequate information concerning the objectives, procedures, potential risks, anticipated benefits, confidentiality arrangements, and right to withdraw.

Research involving children, students, vulnerable populations, or individuals in dependent relationships requires particular ethical care. Parental or guardian consent and participant assent must be obtained where applicable. Participation or refusal must not result in unfair consequences for academic assessment, employment, access to services, or institutional relationships.

Where formal ethical approval is not required under the applicable framework, authors must explain the basis for that determination and describe the ethical safeguards adopted in conducting the research.

11. Privacy, Confidentiality, and Anonymity

Authors must protect confidential information obtained from participants, schools, institutions, research partners, and other parties. Personal or institutional information must not be disclosed where such disclosure could result in identification, harm, disadvantage, or breach of trust.

Names, identification numbers, addresses, photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, institutional records, and other identifiable information must not be published without valid consent and appropriate ethical justification.

The use of pseudonyms or participant codes is recommended where identification is unnecessary. Authors must also assess whether contextual details may indirectly reveal the identity of participants or institutions.

Editors, reviewers, and journal personnel are equally responsible for preserving the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts, review reports, editorial correspondence, personal data, and information obtained during the publication process.

12. Conflicts of Interest

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose relationships, commitments, or interests that could influence, or reasonably appear to influence, their scholarly judgement.

Conflicts of interest may arise from financial relationships, employment, consultancy, institutional affiliation, personal relationships, academic competition, research collaboration, ideological commitments, intellectual property interests, or direct involvement in the work under evaluation.

Authors must disclose all relevant sources of financial and non-financial support and, where appropriate, describe the role of the funder in the design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, or reporting of the research.

Reviewers and editors must decline involvement where a conflict may compromise, or reasonably be perceived to compromise, their impartiality. Failure to disclose a relevant conflict may constitute grounds for editorial investigation and corrective action.

13. Citation Integrity

Citations must serve legitimate scholarly purposes by acknowledging intellectual contributions, situating the research within existing knowledge, and supporting claims with relevant evidence.

Citation manipulation is inconsistent with academic integrity. Prohibited practices include excessive or irrelevant self-citation, coercive citation, citation stacking, coordinated citation exchange, citation cartels, and the recommendation of references solely to increase the citation performance of an individual, journal, institution, or research group.

Authors must verify that cited sources are accurate, relevant, accessible where required, and genuinely support the statements to which they are attached. References that have not been consulted or that do not substantiate the relevant claim must not be included.

Editors and reviewers must ensure that any suggested citation is academically justified and directly relevant to the manuscript.

14. Manuscripts Authored by Editors, Editorial Board Members, or Reviewers

Editors, editorial board members, and reviewers may submit manuscripts to JPMSM; however, their journal roles shall confer no advantage in the evaluation, decision, scheduling, or publication of their work.

An editor or editorial board member who is an author or co-author of a submitted manuscript must not participate in its initial assessment, reviewer selection, editorial discussion, access to confidential reviewer information, or final decision.

Such a manuscript shall be assigned to an independent handling editor who has no relevant conflict of interest. It shall be subjected to the same scholarly and ethical standards applied to all other submissions.

Where an article is authored by a member of the journal’s editorial structure, the published article should contain a transparent statement confirming that the author did not participate in the evaluation or decision-making process.

JPMSM shall monitor the proportion of published articles authored by editors, editorial board members, and reviewers in order to minimise editorial endogeny and preserve the independence of the journal’s publication record.

15. Research and Publication Misconduct

Research and publication misconduct encompasses deliberate, reckless, or seriously negligent conduct that compromises the integrity of research or scholarly publication. Such misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

plagiarism;
fabrication or falsification of data;
inappropriate image manipulation;
duplicate or redundant publication;
unethical or fraudulent authorship;
undisclosed conflicts of interest;
peer-review manipulation;
citation manipulation;
falsification of identity, affiliation, or institutional approval;
submission of manuscripts produced by paper mills;
false declarations concerning ethical approval or informed consent;
misuse of confidential information;
deliberate provision of inaccurate or misleading information; and
obstruction of an editorial or institutional investigation.

Allegations may be raised by authors, readers, reviewers, editors, institutions, research participants, or other parties. Concerns should be presented with sufficient detail and, where possible, supporting evidence.

The journal shall assess allegations impartially, confidentially, and without presuming guilt. Individuals whose conduct is questioned shall normally be given an appropriate opportunity to respond.

Where necessary, the journal may request research data, ethical documentation, authorship declarations, consent records, institutional confirmation, or other relevant evidence. If the matter requires powers of investigation beyond those available to the journal, it may be referred to an institution, ethics committee, employer, funding body, or other competent authority.

16. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

JPMSM is committed to preserving the accuracy and reliability of the scholarly record. Where an error or integrity concern affects a published article, the journal shall determine the most appropriate form of corrective action.

Corrections

A correction may be issued when an error affects the accuracy, interpretation, or presentation of part of an article but does not invalidate its principal findings. The correction notice shall identify the article, explain the nature of the error, provide the corrected information, and remain permanently linked to the original publication.

Minor typographical or formatting errors that do not affect the scholarly meaning of the article may be corrected without a formal notice, provided that such changes do not compromise the transparency of the publication record.

Retractions

Retraction may be warranted where there is reliable evidence that an article contains substantially unreliable findings resulting from fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, major methodological error, unethical research, duplicate publication, manipulated peer review, or unauthorised use of data or intellectual property.

A retraction notice shall clearly identify the article, state the reason for retraction, indicate who initiated the action, distinguish misconduct from honest error where possible, and remain permanently accessible.

The original article will ordinarily remain available as part of the scholarly record but will be clearly marked as retracted. Complete removal shall be considered only where continued access would create serious legal, privacy, ethical, or public safety risks.

Expressions of Concern

An expression of concern may be issued where substantial questions have arisen concerning the integrity of an article, but available evidence is inconclusive, an institutional investigation is pending, or the matter cannot yet be resolved responsibly.

The notice shall remain linked to the article until sufficient evidence supports a correction, retraction, or formal resolution.

17. Complaints and Appeals

JPMSM recognises the right of authors, reviewers, readers, and other stakeholders to raise legitimate concerns regarding editorial conduct, research integrity, publication ethics, or published content.

A complaint should identify the manuscript or article concerned, describe the issue clearly, provide relevant evidence where available, and specify the resolution being sought.

Complaints shall be evaluated by an editor or authorised journal representative who was not directly involved in the matter whenever circumstances permit. The journal shall seek to address complaints impartially, confidentially, and within a reasonable period.

Authors may appeal an editorial decision where they believe that a substantive factual, procedural, or ethical error affected the outcome. An appeal must present reasoned academic grounds and respond directly to the basis of the original decision. Mere disagreement with reviewer comments does not, in itself, constitute sufficient grounds for an appeal.

An appeal may result in confirmation of the original decision, reassessment by another editor, further independent review, or another appropriate determination. The outcome of the formal appeal shall ordinarily constitute the journal’s final editorial decision.

18. Post-Publication Review and Scholarly Discussion

JPMSM regards post-publication scrutiny as an important component of responsible scholarly communication. Readers, authors, institutions, and other interested parties may submit evidence-based concerns, corrections, or requests for clarification concerning published articles.

The journal shall evaluate such communications in relation to their scholarly relevance, evidential basis, and implications for the integrity of the publication record. Authors may be invited to provide a response or supporting documentation.

Where warranted, the journal may publish a clarification, correction, response, expression of concern, retraction, or other editorial notice.

Communications that are abusive, defamatory, discriminatory, threatening, irrelevant, or unsupported by evidence shall not be considered part of legitimate scholarly discussion.

19. Editorial Measures in Cases of Misconduct

Where research or publication misconduct is substantiated, JPMSM may adopt one or more measures proportionate to the nature, seriousness, and consequences of the violation.

Such measures may include:

rejection of the manuscript;
termination of the evaluation process;
correction of the published record;
publication of an expression of concern or retraction;
restriction of future submissions for a specified period;
removal of a reviewer or editor from their journal role;
notification of relevant institutions, ethics committees, employers, or funders;
referral of the matter for institutional investigation; or
other actions necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

In determining an appropriate response, the journal shall consider the strength of the evidence, the degree of intent or negligence, the potential harm caused, the effect on the reliability of the research, and whether similar conduct has occurred previously.

20. Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

Yayasan Pustaka Karya Mandiri, as the publisher of JPMSM, is responsible for supporting the ethical, independent, and academically credible operation of the journal.

The publisher shall:

uphold the editorial independence of the journal;
support the implementation of recognised standards of publication ethics;
maintain reliable systems for manuscript management and scholarly publication;
support investigations of credible ethical concerns;
facilitate corrections, retractions, and other notices required to preserve the scholarly record;
protect confidential and personal information obtained through journal operations;
prevent misleading claims concerning journal status, recognition, or institutional relationships; and
support the long-term preservation and integrity of published scholarship.

The publisher shall not interfere with editorial judgements concerning the acceptance, revision, rejection, correction, or retraction of individual manuscripts.

21. Interpretation and Review of Ethical Cases

This statement applies to all manuscripts submitted to and all articles published by JPMSM. Ethical cases shall be considered on the basis of available evidence, relevant disciplinary standards, principles of procedural fairness, and the need to protect the reliability of the scholarly record.

Where a case is not expressly addressed in this statement, JPMSM shall refer to relevant COPE guidance, recognised standards of research integrity and responsible scholarly publishing, applicable institutional policies, and relevant legal requirements.

Approved by the Editorial Board of Jurnal Pendidikan, Media, Strategi, dan Metode
Publisher: Yayasan Pustaka Karya Mandiri