PUBLICATION ETHICS / JOURNAL STATEMENT / MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

The statement of ethics for the Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS), published by Penerbit Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin Malaysia (UniSZA Press), is adapted from the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and covers the code of ethics for Editor-in-Chief, editorial board members, reviewers and authors.

 

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

  • Have the responsibility of ensuring only original work is submitted.
  • Must not reproduce work that has been previously published in other journals.
  • Must not submit any articles that are being reviewed or considered by the journal to other journals simultaneously.
  • Are only allowed to publish their work elsewhere after receiving a formal rejection from the journal or if their request to withdraw their work is officially accepted by the journal.
  • Must inform the Editor-in-Chief or the publisher of any inaccuracy of data in their published work so that correction or retraction of article can be done.
  • Should make significant contributions and be held accountable for any shortcoming in their work. 

 

DUTIES OF REVIEWERS

  • Must disclose any competing interest before agreeing to review a submission.
  • Can refuse to review any submission due to a conflict of interest or inadequate knowledge.
  • Review all submissions objectively, fairly and professionally. 
  • Reveal any ethical misconduct encountered while reviewing to the Editor-in-Chief for further action.
  • Should ensure the originality of a submission and be alert to any plagiarism and redundant publication.
  • Must not discuss the content of the submission without permission.
  • Adhere to the time allocated for the review process. Requests for extension to review the submission are at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

 

 DUTIES OF EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

  • Actively contribute to the development and the greater good of the journal.
  • Act as ambassadors for the journal.
  • Continuously support and promote the journal.
  • Review any work assigned to them.

 

 DUTIES OF EDITOR-in-CHIEF

  • Evaluate manuscripts fairly and solely on their intellectual merit.
  • Ensure confidentiality of manuscripts and not disclose any information regarding manuscripts to anyone other than the people involved in the publishing process.
  • Has the responsibility to decide when and which articles are to be published.
  • Actively seek the views of board members, reviewers and authors on how to improve/ increase the image and visibility of the journal.
  • Give clear instructions to potential contributors on the submission process and what is expected of the authors.
  • Ensure appropriate reviewers are selected/ identified for the reviewing process.

 

PLAGIARISM

Authors should submit only original work that is not plagiarized and has not been published or being considered elsewhere.  Appropriate software may be used by the editorial office to check for similarities between submitted manuscripts and existing literature. The inclusion of fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements is unacceptable. Work and/or words from other publications must be appropriately cited or quoted.

 

REPORTING

Authors should state their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. The methods used in the work should be clearly and unambiguously described so that the findings can be repeated and confirmed by other researchers.

 

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

A statement on conflict of interest must be included in the manuscript if authors receive any support that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. 

 

AUTHORSHIP AND COLLABORATION

The names of authors listed in a paper should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the report. Only those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Others participating in certain substantive aspects of the work must be acknowledged or listed as contributors. It is the duty of the corresponding author to ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included in the paper.  All co-authors must approve the final version of the paper and agree to the version of the paper before submission.

 

MULTIPLE OR REDUNDANT

Authors should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research output in more than one journal or primary publication. A similar manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal concurrently, as this constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

 

THE USE OF AI AND AI-ASSISTED TECHNOLOGIES

JONUS’ policy on the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies aligns with COPE that:

"Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics" (COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics).

 

CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTION

When errors are found in papers that have already been published, the journal will decide what should be done and may consult the editor(s), author(s), and author(s)’ institution(s). Errors made by the authors can be fixed with a corrigendum, while those made by the publisher can be fixed with an erratum.

Instances of misconduct or inaccuracies that have a major impact on the conclusions may call for a retraction or a declaration of concern. For these situations, JONUS adheres to the COPE retraction standards.

COPE guidelines are available here: https://publicationethics.org/search?query=files+cope+retraction+guidelines+v2.pdf&urlfield=

 

COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS

By emailing jonus@unisza.edu.my, authors and readers can report their complaints or appeals to the editor or publisher of the journal. The publisher will give each complaint a special complaint number. For further follow-up, authors and readers can use the complaint numbers.

Please send an email to the managing editor at radzuwanrashid@unisza.edu.my if you do not hear back from your complaint within 72 hours or if you are dissatisfied with the response. In any subsequent communications, kindly include your specific complaint number.

 

MISCONDUCT AND SANCTIONS

Concerns regarding research ethics and suspected violations of our publishing ethics policies, both before and after publication, should be reported to the journal. If desired, claimants’ identities will be protected.

Our editors will launch a comprehensive inquiry as soon as we learn about the misbehaviour. The supporting information, pictures, and other supplemental resources may need to be supplied by the writers. Editors will be consulted, and the journal will get in touch with organisations or companies to request an investigation.

The journal will reject an article if it is discovered to have violated its ethical publishing standards, such as by duplicate submission, fake data, plagiarism, citation manipulation, false claim of authorship, etc.

If the article is accepted and is in the “Online first” stage, the journal will remove it from the website and issue a note indicating that the piece has been withdrawn. After review and preliminary acceptance, the authors’ failure to respond to journal correspondence is likewise regarded as a withdrawal of the work. If it is a published article, it will be retracted immediately following the COPE Retraction Guidelines.

The journal follows COPE flow charts (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts) to handle misconduct.

In addition to that we may take the following actions based on the severity of misconduct;

  • Not allowing submission for 1–3 years.
  • A prohibition from acting as an editor or reviewer.
  • Reporting the misconduct to the author’s institutions, employers, and funding agencies.

However, the minor unintentional errors by the authors may be corrected by a corrigendum and errors by the publisher by an erratum.

 

JOURNAL OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS) is owned by the Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UNISZA) and its operation is managed by UNISZA Press.

 

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING

UNISZA Press follows the CC BY license (Creative Commons Attribution v4.0 International License) for its open-access journal ‘Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS). The CC BY license is the most open license available and is considered the industry ‘gold standard’ for open access. This license allows users to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to alter, transform, or build upon the material, including for commercial use, provided that the original author is credited. Copyright on any open-access article in JONUS is retained by the author(s). The authors grant Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin Press a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.

 

ACCESS POLICY

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global knowledge exchange.

 

DIGITAL PRESERVATION / ARCHIVING

All the contents published in the Journal of Nusantara Studies (JONUS) are preserved in the Journal’s own cloud space to ensure that these materials remain accessible to future scholars, researchers, and students. Each article is also uploaded to the Ebsco Host database.

 

REVENUE SOURCES

JONUS operates with dual support: financial and institutional backing from Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, alongside revenue generated through article processing charges (APCs). This hybrid funding model enables us to maintain high publication standards and ensure the sustainability of our operations while fostering academic contributions globally. Publishing fees or waiver status does not influence editorial decision making.

 

ADVERTISING

This journal does not accept sponsorship or advertising.

 

DIRECT MARKETING

Any direct marketing activities carried out by JONUS, including solicitation of manuscripts that are conducted on behalf of the journal, are appropriate, well-targeted, and unobtrusive. Information provided about the publisher or journal is always truthful and not misleading for readers and authors.