Publication Ethic

Publication Ethics

Ethical standards for authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher

Jurnal Pengabdian dan Pengembangan Masyarakat Indonesia (JPPMI) is committed to maintaining integrity, transparency, accountability, fairness, and respect throughout the publication process. This policy applies to authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher.

JPPMI follows the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices and considers other relevant scholarly and research-ethics standards when evaluating manuscripts and responding to publication concerns.

Core Ethical Principles

  • Honesty and accuracy in reporting;
  • Respect for participating communities and individuals;
  • Protection of privacy, dignity, safety, and autonomy;
  • Transparent authorship, funding, and conflicts of interest;
  • Independent and confidential peer review;
  • Fair and evidence-based editorial decisions;
  • Responsible correction of the scholarly record; and
  • Accountability for published content.

1. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that:

  • The manuscript is original, accurate, and honestly reported;
  • The manuscript is not simultaneously submitted elsewhere;
  • All data, results, quotations, and sources are accurately presented;
  • All persons listed as authors satisfy the journal's authorship criteria;
  • Funding sources and conflicts of interest are fully disclosed;
  • Required ethics approval, exemption, permission, and consent have been obtained;
  • Community members are described respectfully and without stigmatizing language;
  • Identifiable information and photographs are published only with appropriate consent;
  • The availability and limitations of supporting data are transparently stated; and
  • Any substantial error discovered after submission or publication is promptly reported to the editor.

2. Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for:

  • Evaluating manuscripts fairly and independently;
  • Protecting manuscript and reviewer confidentiality;
  • Selecting reviewers with appropriate expertise;
  • Managing personal, institutional, academic, and financial conflicts of interest;
  • Ensuring that editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit;
  • Responding consistently to allegations of misconduct;
  • Maintaining complete editorial and peer-review records in OJS; and
  • Correcting the scholarly record when reliable evidence demonstrates that action is required.

3. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers must:

  • Maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts and review records;
  • Provide objective, constructive, specific, and respectful comments;
  • Review only manuscripts within their competence;
  • Disclose relevant conflicts of interest;
  • Notify the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplication, fabrication, or ethical concerns;
  • Avoid using unpublished information for personal or professional advantage; and
  • Submit review reports within the agreed period or promptly decline the assignment.

4. Originality, Plagiarism, and Duplicate Publication

Manuscripts must represent original work. Plagiarism, unattributed copying, inappropriate paraphrasing, duplicate publication, redundant publication, self-plagiarism, and fragmentation of one program into multiple minimally different manuscripts are unacceptable.

JPPMI may use similarity-detection software during editorial evaluation. Similarity reports are interpreted contextually and are not assessed solely on the basis of a numerical percentage. References, properly attributed quotations, standard methodological expressions, and legitimate overlap are considered during editorial assessment.

5. Data and Reporting Integrity

Fabrication, falsification, selective omission, misleading presentation, inappropriate manipulation of images, invention of participants, creation of false ethical documents, and unsupported claims of program effectiveness constitute serious misconduct.

  • Authors must retain relevant program and evaluation records.
  • Editors may request anonymized data, instruments, consent records, or supporting documentation.
  • Quantitative claims must be supported by actual data and appropriate analysis.
  • Qualitative findings must be supported by a transparent analytical process.
  • Program limitations and unsuccessful outcomes must not be deliberately concealed.

6. Authorship and Contribution

Authorship should be limited to individuals who made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the program, implementation or data acquisition, analysis or interpretation, manuscript preparation, and final approval of the submitted version.

Guest, honorary, gift, purchased, and ghost authorship are prohibited. Administrative position, funding acquisition, general supervision, or participation in a community activity alone does not automatically justify authorship. Contributions that do not meet authorship criteria should be recognized in the acknowledgments. Author contributions must be described transparently using appropriate contributor roles.

7. Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose relationships that could reasonably influence—or appear to influence—the work or its evaluation. These may include financial, employment, institutional, supervisory, personal, academic, ideological, or commercial relationships. Authors must identify all sources of financial and material support and describe the funder's role, if any, in program design, implementation, evaluation, manuscript preparation, or publication decisions.

8. Ethical Oversight of Community Engagement

Not every community engagement activity constitutes human-participant research. Routine education, training, mentoring, technical assistance, or community service may not require formal research ethics committee approval when the activity involves minimal risk and is not designed as human-participant research.

However, describing an activity as community service does not automatically exempt it from ethical oversight. Formal ethics approval or a documented exemption may be required when the program includes systematic human data collection, research-oriented analysis, health-related intervention, sensitive personal information, identifiable records, biological measurements, comparison groups, prospective assignment, or participation by minors or other vulnerable populations.

Activity Category Examples Expected Documentation
Routine low-risk community service General education, mentoring, technical training, or non-sensitive community assistance Community permission, voluntary participation, privacy protection, and consent for identifiable publication
Program evaluation with human data Pre-test and post-test, interviews, surveys, behavioral assessment, or analysis intended for scholarly publication Ethics approval or a formal exemption/determination from an authorized institutional body when required
Higher-risk or sensitive activities Health intervention, clinical measurement, sensitive data, vulnerable participants, minors, or identifiable health records Prospective ethics approval and appropriate informed-consent documentation

9. Historical Policy Context and Prospective Implementation

In earlier publication periods, JPPMI did not routinely require authors to submit a formal ethics committee approval letter for community engagement manuscripts. Under the journal's previous editorial approach, conventional community service activities were generally distinguished from research involving human participants, provided that the activities were considered low risk and were primarily intended to provide education, training, assistance, or community empowerment.

Consequently, the absence of a published ethics approval number or an uploaded ethics approval document in an article published under the earlier policy should not, by itself, be interpreted as evidence that the authors or the article engaged in ethical misconduct. Requirements for those articles are considered in relation to the journal policy, institutional practice, nature of the activity, and information available at the time of submission.

To strengthen participant protection and publication transparency, JPPMI applies the updated ethical-oversight requirements in this policy prospectively to manuscripts submitted on or after 1 September 2026. Authors submitting from this date must provide an ethics approval statement, formal exemption, or a clear explanation of why formal review was not required.

JPPMI does not conduct automatic retrospective reassessment of all previously published articles solely because the journal's documentation requirements have changed. Nevertheless, the journal may investigate a specific published article when credible evidence indicates possible harm, absence of required consent, serious privacy concerns, misrepresentation, or another substantial ethical problem. Appropriate action may include clarification, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or referral to the relevant institution.

10. Requirements for New Submissions

For manuscripts submitted on or after 1 September 2026, authors must include one of the following statements:

Ethics approval obtained

“This program and its evaluation were approved by [name of ethics committee/institution] under approval number [number], dated [date].”

Formal exemption obtained

“The responsible institutional body determined that this activity was exempt from formal ethics committee review because [brief reason]. The exemption was issued by [institution], reference number [number], dated [date].”

Formal review not required

“Formal research ethics committee review was not required because this activity constituted a routine, minimal-risk community service program and did not involve research-oriented participant assignment, sensitive personal data, clinical procedures, or biological specimen collection.”

The editor may request confirmation from the authors' institution when the basis for exemption is unclear. Authors should not independently declare an activity exempt when institutional determination is required by applicable rules.

Retrospective Ethics Documentation

Ethics approval should normally be obtained before the activity or data collection begins. An approval obtained after completion must not be presented as prospective approval. A retrospective institutional letter clarifying whether ethics review was required may be considered, but its timing and status must be reported transparently.

11. Informed Consent, Privacy, and Community Permission

  • Participation must be voluntary and based on adequate information.
  • Refusal to participate must not result in inappropriate disadvantage.
  • Guardian consent and age-appropriate assent are required for minors when applicable.
  • Identifiable photographs, quotations, personal histories, or case details require consent for publication.
  • Data must be anonymized or de-identified when identification is unnecessary.
  • Permission from a community leader or institution does not replace individual consent when individual consent is required.
  • Authors must consider power imbalances, cultural context, and the protection of vulnerable participants.

12. Generative Artificial Intelligence

Generative artificial intelligence cannot be listed as an author. Authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, citations, analysis, interpretation, and conclusions of their manuscript.

Permitted use of generative AI must be transparently declared. AI must not be used to fabricate data, participants, quotations, references, images, approval letters, consent records, or results. Editors and reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts to external AI systems that cannot guarantee confidentiality.

13. Handling Suspected Misconduct

Allegations are assessed objectively, confidentially, and without automatic presumption of misconduct. Depending on the nature of the concern, JPPMI may:

  • Conduct a preliminary editorial assessment;
  • Request an explanation or supporting documentation from the authors;
  • Consult reviewers, editorial board members, or independent experts;
  • Contact the authors' institution, ethics committee, or funding body;
  • Suspend editorial processing while an investigation is conducted;
  • Reject or withdraw a manuscript before publication; or
  • Correct, retract, or issue an expression of concern for published material.

14. Corrections and Retractions

JPPMI is committed to maintaining an accurate scholarly record. Minor production errors may be corrected directly when they do not affect the interpretation of the article. Material errors are addressed through a published correction. Retraction or an expression of concern may be issued when findings are unreliable, serious misconduct is established, ethical violations have occurred, or an investigation remains unresolved. The original article and its DOI record will remain linked to the relevant notice.

15. Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are based on relevance, originality, methodological quality, ethical integrity, and scholarly contribution. Decisions are not influenced by article processing charges, institutional affiliation, personal relationships, sponsorship, or commercial considerations. Manuscripts submitted by editors or publisher-affiliated individuals are handled by an independent editor.

16. Complaints and Ethical Concerns

Authors, reviewers, readers, community participants, and other parties may report publication-ethics concerns to the editorial office. Reports should identify the relevant article or manuscript, describe the concern clearly, and provide supporting information when available. The journal will review credible concerns fairly, confidentially, and in accordance with its complaints, corrections, and retraction policies.