Statement

Jurnal Pengabdian Aceh (JPAceh) is a community service and open-access journal published by Ikatan Sarjana Ekonomi Indonesia (ISEI) Cabang Kota Banda Aceh. The editorial team is committed to meeting and maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and taking all possible action against publication malpractice. This statement clarifies the ethical behavior of all parties involved in publishing articles in this journal, namely authors, editors, editorial board, reviewers, and publishers. This statement is based on the COPE’s Best Practices Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Ethical Principles

Our journal is committed to adhering to the ethical principles based on Core Practices issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as follows:

1. Allegations of misconduct

Our journal welcomes any valid allegation made against authors, reviewers, and editors. Handling misconduct allegations at our journal can be divided into two situations. First is an allegation against the author, and second is against a reviewer or editor. If an author has been alleged of potential misconduct such as plagiarism or its article has already been published elsewhere, an independent investigation will be conducted towards the allegation. Shall the allegation be found to be valid, the alleged author will be blacklisted, and his/her article will be withdrawn from our publication. The alleged author will also be required to provide a formally written statement of apology, which will be posted on our announcement platform and website.

Similarly, an independent investigation will also be performed in the case of an allegation against a reviewer or editor. The reviewer and editor will no longer participate in our journal activities if the allegation is valid.

2. Authorship and Contributorship

Authors are responsible for providing original research that has not been submitted or published elsewhere. Authors are also responsible for providing accurate and detailed data when requested. To ensure originality, the authors need to check the originality of the article using a plagiarism checker before submission. The authors must fill out and submit the copyright transfer form on the website when submitting their manuscripts. When reproducing data from other sources, proper citation and permission are required.

3. Complaints and appeals

Our journal treats complaints and appeals fairly, promptly, and independently. For instance, the chief editor will handle reasonable complaints against the reviewer, and the publisher will handle any complaint against the chief editor.

4. Conflicts of interest / Competing interests

A conflict of interest can occur when the author has a financial, commercial, legal, or professional relationship with other organizations or the people working with them that could influence their research. Therefore, authors must fully disclose any potential conflicts of interest in a cover letter. Detailed financial sources supporting the work should also be fully acknowledged. The editor may decide not to publish your article based on any declared conflict. The conflict of interest can be declared on your cover letter or the manuscript submission form in the journal’s online peer-review system.

The following is a sample of disclosure about conflict of interest by the author:

Following the ethical policy of the Jurnal Pengabdian Aceh (JPAceh) and my ethical obligation as a researcher, I am reporting that I [have financial and business interests in/am a consultant to/receive funding from] (delete as appropriate) a company that may influence my research.

The editorial team of JPAceh may subsequently decide whether to publish or not to publish the article based on the above disclosure. If there is no disclosure by the author, JPAceh will publish the following statement: “The authors reported no potential conflict of interest

5. Data and reproducibility

Authors are responsible for providing accurate and detailed data when they are requested.

6. Ethical oversight

Authors are required to maintain the confidentiality of data published in their papers. The journal also upholds the utmost importance of data confidentiality and ethical conduct of research subjects, whether human, business, or marketing practices.

7. Intellectual property

JPAceh is an open-access journal on ROAD (Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources). This is an open-access journal, meaning that all content is freely available to the user or their institution without charge. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles or use them for any other lawful purpose without asking the publisher's or the author's prior permission.

8. Journal management

JPAceh is operated using the Open Journal System (OJS) platform. It is managed and published by Ikatan Sarjana Ekonomi Indonesia (ISEI) Kota Banda Aceh, Aceh, Indonesia. JPAceh editorial team is headed by one Chief Editor assisted by two managing editors and a team of associate editors with the advice and supervision of an independent Editorial Advisory Board from Indonesia and several other countries. To ensure efficient journal management and its continuous improvement, members of the JPAceh editorial team occasionally attend relevant training and programs about journal management.

9. Peer review processes

All submitted articles will be reviewed in the double-blind system for peer review; both reviewers and authors’ identities remain anonymous.  The submitted manuscript will be reviewed by at least two experts: one editorial member and one external reviewer. The review process may take two to four weeks.

10. Post-publication discussions and corrections

Our journal allows debate post-publication through letters to the editor, and mechanisms for correcting, revising, or retracting articles after publication are through an announcement feature on our website.

 

Duties of the Editorial Team

The responsibilities of the editorial team are as follows: 

Chief editors and managing editors have full responsibility and authority to accept or reject an article. Articles submitted by the authors to JPAceh are distributed by the editor-in-chief or managing editors to the editor on board or external reviewers. JPAceh relies on double-blind peer review to uphold the quality and validity of individual articles and published journals.

When deciding to publish an article, editors should be objective and fair when conducting their duties without discriminating on gender, ethnicity, religion, political view, or geographical origin of the authors. The editor has the right to revise the accepted manuscript. Editors should also accept articles based on the quality of an article on academic merit. The reviewers are requested to assist in improving the quality of an article within a scheduled period set by the editor-in-chief or managing editor. Reviewers contribute to the decision-making process of the article. The editor must be informed if reviewers find any published or submitted content like an article under review. Reviewers should have no conflict of interest concerning the research, the authors, and the funders. Any confidentiality of the information the editor or author-supplied should be maintained.

Fair play and editorial independence

Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts exclusively based on their academic merit (importance, originality, study’s validity, clarity) and their relevance to the journal’s scope, without regard to the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy, or institutional affiliation. The policies of governments or other agencies outside the journal do not determine decisions to edit and publish. The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content.

Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Editors and editorial board members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for research purposes without the author’s explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors from handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used to their advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts with conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another editorial board member to handle the manuscript.

Publication decisions

The editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer review by at least two reviewers who are experts in the field. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published based on the validation of the work in question, its importance to researchers and readers, the reviewers’ comments, and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor-in-chief may confer with other editors or reviewers to make this decision.

 

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists editors in making editorial decisions and, through editorial communications with authors, may assist authors in improving their manuscripts. Peer review is essential to formal scholarly communication and lies at the heart of the scientific endeavor. AP-SMART shares the view of many that all scholars who wish to contribute to the scientific process must do a fair share of reviewing.

Promptness

Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review are confidential and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others except if authorized by the Editor-in-Chief (who would only do so under exceptional and specific circumstances). This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively, and observations should be formulated clearly with supporting arguments so that authors can use them to improve the manuscript. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that the authors have not cited. Any statement that is an observation, derivation, or argument reported in previous publications should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also notify the editors of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other (published or unpublished) they know personally.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the manuscript and the work described therein should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review so that alternative reviewers can be contacted.

Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s research without the express written consent of the authors. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s advantage. This applies also to invited reviewers who decline the review invitation.

 

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and the results, followed by an objective discussion of the significance of the work. The manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Review articles should be accurate, objective, and comprehensive, while editorial 'opinion' or perspective pieces should be identified as such. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide their study's raw data together with the manuscript for editorial review. They should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable. In any event, authors should ensure accessibility of such data to other competent professionals for at least 10 years after publication (preferably via an institutional or subject-based data repository or other data center), provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and legal rights concerning proprietary data do not preclude their release.

Originality and plagiarism

Authors should ensure that they have written and submitted only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the work reported in the manuscript should also be cited. Plagiarism takes many forms, from "passing off" another's paper as the author's own to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another's paper (without attribution) to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Multiple, duplicate, redundant, or concurrent submission/publication

Papers describing the same research should not be published in multiple journals or primary publications. Hence, authors should not submit a manuscript already published in another journal for consideration. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is unethical publishing behavior and unacceptable.

Publishing articles (such as clinical guidelines and translations) in multiple journals is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Authorship of the manuscript

Only persons who meet these authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript as they must be able to take public responsibility for the content: (i) made significant contributions to the conception, design, execution, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of the study; and (ii) drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content; and (iii) have seen and approved the final version of the paper and agreed to its submission for publication. All persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as technical help, writing and editing assistance, and general support) but who do not meet the criteria for authorship must not be listed as an author but should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named as been obtained. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors (according to the above definition) and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the author list and verify that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Authors should—at the earliest stage possible (generally by submitting a disclosure form at the time of submission and including a statement in the manuscript)—disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. Examples of potential conflicts of interest that should be disclosed include financial ones such as honoraria, educational grants or other funding, participation in speakers’ bureaus, membership, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, or other equity interest, and paid expert testimony or patent-licensing arrangements, as well as non-financial ones such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, knowledge or beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed (including the grant number or other reference number, if any).

Acknowledgement of sources

Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others and cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from the conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained while providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.

Hazards and human or animal subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment with any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the authors must identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves using animals or human participants, the authors should ensure that all procedures comply with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them; the manuscript should contain a statement. The authors should also include a statement in the manuscript stating that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human participants. The privacy rights of human participants must always be observed.

Peer review

Authors must participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors’ requests for raw data, clarifications, proof of ethics approval, patient consent, and copyright permissions. In the case of a first decision of "revisions necessary," authors should respond to the reviewers’ comments systematically, point by point, and on time, revising and re-submitting their manuscript to the journal by the given deadline.

Fundamental errors in published works

When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, they must promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to correct the paper in the form of an erratum or retract it. Suppose the editors or publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error or inaccuracy. In that case, the authors must promptly correct or retract the paper or provide evidence to the journal editors of the correctness of the paper.

 

Duties of the Publisher

Handling of unethical publishing behavior

In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and to amend the article in question. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification, or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work.  The publisher and the editors shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to occur.

Access to journal content

The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our digital archive.