RESEARCH MISCONDUCT AND POST-PUBLICATION POLICY

JPEKA: Jurnal Pendidikan Ekonomi, Manajemen dan Keuangan is committed to safeguarding the integrity, accuracy, transparency, reliability, and continuity of the scholarly record. This proposed policy describes how the journal may address allegations of research or publication misconduct, significant errors, ethical concerns, and post-publication scholarly discussion.

This policy should be read together with JPEKA’s current Publication Ethics statement and submission guidelines. JPEKA’s published ethics statement addresses matters including originality and plagiarism, redundant or concurrent publication, appropriate acknowledgement, authorship, disclosure of conflicts of interest, and the responsibility to report significant errors in published work. The detailed procedures below are proposed provisions and should be approved by the Editorial Team before being presented as official JPEKA policy.

1. General Principles

Allegations of misconduct and post-publication concerns should be assessed fairly, objectively, proportionately, and confidentially to the extent reasonably possible. An allegation must not be treated as proven misconduct before an appropriate assessment or investigation has taken place.

Authors and other relevant parties should ordinarily be given a reasonable opportunity to provide clarification, supporting documentation, or a response. Anyone with a relevant conflict of interest should not determine the outcome.

Where necessary, JPEKA may seek advice from independent reviewers, subject specialists, statisticians, research-integrity or ethics experts, legal advisers, authors’ institutions, research ethics committees, funders, or other relevant authorities.

Editorial action should reflect the nature and severity of the concern, the available evidence, and its potential effect on the reliability or integrity of the work. Financial or commercial considerations should not determine whether action needed to protect the scholarly record is taken.

2. Allegations of Research and Publication Misconduct

Research or publication misconduct may include, but is not limited to, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, data or image manipulation, unethical authorship practices, undisclosed conflicts of interest, duplicate submission, redundant publication, misleading claims about ethical approval or participant consent, and other serious breaches of research or publication ethics.

Concerns may be raised by Authors, readers, Reviewers, Editors, institutions, research participants, whistleblowers, funders, or other relevant parties. Where possible, a report should identify the manuscript or article, explain the concern clearly, and provide relevant supporting evidence or information.

Anonymous or confidential reports may be considered when they contain sufficiently specific, credible, and relevant information to support a meaningful assessment.

When a credible concern is received, the Editorial Team may conduct a preliminary assessment, request clarification or supporting records, examine available evidence, consult independent experts, and communicate with the Authors or other relevant parties. Where appropriate, JPEKA may contact an Author’s institution, research ethics committee, funder, research-integrity unit, or other competent authority.

Peer review, an editorial decision, acceptance, production, or publication may be temporarily suspended while a serious ethical or research-integrity concern is being assessed.

Depending on the findings and the publication status of the work, possible action may include clarification, revision, manuscript rejection, withdrawal before public publication, Correction, Erratum, Corrigendum, Expression of Concern, Retraction, Article Removal, Article Replacement, or referral to an appropriate institution or authority.

3. Publication Status and Post-Publication Changes

For the purposes of this proposed policy, an article is considered published once it has been made publicly available by JPEKA as an official scholarly publication, including as an Article in Press, Online First, Ahead of Print, or Version of Record, where such formats are used by the journal.

The assignment or registration of a DOI alone does not necessarily mean that a manuscript has been made publicly available.

Once an article has been publicly published, it forms part of the scholarly record and should not be silently deleted, overwritten, or replaced. Significant changes should be documented transparently through an appropriate post-publication process.

4. Correction, Erratum, Corrigendum, and Expression of Concern

Correction

A Correction may be considered when a published article contains a substantive error or omission that should be corrected to preserve the accuracy of the scholarly record, but the error does not invalidate the main findings or conclusions and responsibility is mixed, unclear, or not appropriately classified solely as an Erratum or Corrigendum.

Erratum

An Erratum may be considered when a substantive error arose primarily during the journal’s editorial, copyediting, typesetting, metadata, production, or publication process and does not invalidate the article’s main findings or conclusions.

Corrigendum

A Corrigendum may be considered when a substantive error or omission originated primarily with the Authors or the submitted manuscript but does not invalidate the article’s main findings or conclusions.

Expression of Concern

An Expression of Concern may be considered when substantial concerns exist about an article’s integrity, reliability, or ethical status, but an investigation is ongoing, available evidence is inconclusive, or a final decision cannot yet be made.

These notices should be assessed editorially. Independent expert review may be sought where scientific, methodological, statistical, technical, ethical, or other specialist evaluation is needed. A formal notice should clearly identify the Original Article, explain the nature of the concern or correction, and link to the Original Article. Where technically and editorially feasible, the notice should be published as a separate record with its own DOI. The Original Article will ordinarily remain accessible with its original DOI and publication history.

5. Withdrawal

Withdrawal primarily applies to a manuscript that has not yet been made publicly available as a published article by JPEKA.

A withdrawal request should be submitted in writing by an Author and include clear reasons. JPEKA may request clarification, confirmation, or agreement from all Authors before processing the request, particularly when the manuscript has entered peer review, revision, acceptance, or production, or when the request may affect the rights or responsibilities of other Authors.

Once an article has been publicly published, concerns should ordinarily be addressed through an appropriate post-publication mechanism, such as a Correction, Erratum, Corrigendum, Expression of Concern, Retraction, Article Removal, or Article Replacement, rather than through withdrawal. Any administrative arrangements or charges, if applicable, must follow JPEKA’s current, formally published policies; this draft does not establish a fee.

6. Retraction

Retraction may be considered when a published article is seriously unreliable or should no longer be maintained as part of the trustworthy scholarly literature.

Grounds may include serious errors that invalidate the findings or conclusions, fabrication or falsification, plagiarism, duplicate publication, serious data or image manipulation, unethical research, peer-review manipulation, serious authorship or publication violations, or other major research-integrity or ethical concerns.

A retraction decision should be based on editorial or research-integrity assessment and the available evidence. Where necessary, JPEKA may consult independent experts, institutions, research ethics committees, or other relevant authorities.

A Retraction Notice should be published and linked to the Original Article. It should identify the article, state clearly that it has been retracted, and explain the reasons sufficiently to inform readers while distinguishing established findings from unresolved allegations. The Original Article should ordinarily remain accessible to preserve the scholarly record and be clearly marked “RETRACTED,” unless legal, privacy, confidentiality, safety, or other exceptional circumstances require removal.

7. Article Removal

Article Removal is an exceptional measure and should not be used as a routine alternative to Correction or Retraction.

Removal may be considered when continued public access to the full text creates a serious legal, privacy, confidentiality, copyright, health, safety, or security risk, or when required by a binding court order or legal obligation.

Where possible, bibliographic metadata, DOI, title, and Author information should remain available. The full text may be removed or access-restricted and replaced by a notice explaining, to the extent legally and ethically permissible, why the content is no longer publicly available.

8. Article Replacement

Article Replacement may be considered in exceptional circumstances when the changes required to a published article are too extensive to be adequately addressed through a Correction, Erratum, or Corrigendum and a replacement version is necessary to preserve the accuracy of the scholarly record.

Replacement should not be used merely to improve style, update routine information, add new research findings, satisfy an Author’s preference, or silently rewrite a published article. JPEKA should determine whether replacement, retraction, correction, or another action is most appropriate and may seek independent expert advice for substantial scientific, methodological, statistical, ethical, or technical issues.

The Original Article must remain traceable and clearly linked to the replacement record. Where appropriate, the article may be labelled “REPLACED” or “RETRACTED AND REPLACED.”

9. Comments and Criticism

JPEKA may support responsible post-publication scholarly discussion through Comments and Criticism, subject to editorial approval and the journal’s publication procedures.

Such contributions may address methodology, statistical analysis, theoretical interpretation, scientific reasoning, limitations, reproducibility, replication, interpretation of findings, clarification, or other substantive academic issues concerning a published article.

Substantive submissions should undergo editorial assessment and may be subject to independent peer review depending on their scholarly and technical content. Allegations of fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unethical research, authorship violations, peer-review manipulation, or other serious misconduct should normally be reported confidentially to the Editorial Team for preliminary assessment rather than presented publicly as established facts.

The Editor may decide whether a submission should be handled as scholarly discussion, a research-integrity matter, or both through appropriately separate procedures.

10. Author Response

Authors of the Original Article may be invited to respond to substantive Comments and Criticism. An Author Response should remain professional, evidence-based, and focused on the scholarly issues raised.

An Author Response should undergo editorial assessment and may be subject to independent peer review if it presents new data, new analyses, substantial technical arguments, or new scientific claims. If published, Comments and Criticism and the corresponding Author Response may receive separate DOIs and should be linked to the relevant Original Article where technically feasible.

11. Minor Changes

Minor changes that do not materially affect meaning, interpretation, scholarly credit, reliability, conclusions, or important bibliographic metadata may be corrected without a formal Correction notice. Examples may include minor typographical or punctuation errors, formatting issues, small display defects, or broken links.

Minor changes would not ordinarily require a separate DOI or a formal Crossmark update. Where the significance of a proposed change is uncertain, the Editor may seek independent expert advice.

12. Publication and Administrative Charges

Any administrative or production charges associated with Author-requested withdrawal, post-publication changes, corrections, replacement, or other administrative services must be governed by a current and formally published JPEKA policy, if one applies. This draft does not establish or imply the existence of any such fee.

Actions required because of journal or publisher error, or because of ethical, legal, scientific, research-integrity, or scholarly-record protection concerns, should be considered according to the applicable policy and editorial assessment. Payment status must not influence editorial decisions or prevent action necessary to correct or protect the scholarly record.

13. DOI Metadata and the Scholarly Record

Where appropriate and supported by the journal’s technical infrastructure, significant post-publication notices should be linked to the Original Article and metadata should be updated in accordance with applicable DOI registration requirements.

Crossmark should not be represented as an active JPEKA service unless its use has been confirmed by the journal. If JPEKA adopts or uses Crossmark, relevant updates should follow Crossref/Crossmark requirements and the journal’s approved procedures.

14. Author Declarations

Authors must comply with JPEKA’s current Publication Ethics statement, submission guidelines, and any required author declarations or signed ethical statements. Authors are responsible for the accuracy and authenticity of the information and documents submitted.

Authors should understand that breaches of research or publication ethics may lead to an appropriate investigation and editorial action, including Correction, Expression of Concern, withdrawal before publication, Retraction, Article Removal, Article Replacement, manuscript rejection, suspension of editorial or publication processes, or referral to an appropriate institution or authority.

15. Policy Review

The Editorial Team should review this policy periodically to maintain alignment with publication-ethics standards, scholarly publishing best practices, applicable DOI metadata requirements, relevant laws and regulations, technological developments, and the journal’s operational needs.

The policy may be updated in response to guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Crossref/Crossmark, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), or other relevant scholarly publishing organizations and authorities.

When a case is not specifically covered by this policy, the Editor may exercise professional editorial judgment, taking into account appropriate external guidance, available evidence, independent expert advice where necessary, and the principles of fairness, transparency, proportionality, confidentiality, editorial independence, and protection of the scholarly record. The Publisher may provide appropriate administrative, technical, legal, or operational support in a non-editorial capacity. Until a revised policy is formally approved, the journal’s currently applicable policies remain in effect.

16. Related JPEKA Policies and References

The following official JPEKA pages provide the current publicly available context for this draft: