Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics

Responsive: Jurnal Pemikiran dan Penelitian Administrasi, Sosial, Humaniora dan Kebijakan Publik
Published by Universitas Padjadjaran, managed by the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences.

e-ISSN 2654-6035 · DOI prefix 10.24198 · https://journals.unpad.ac.id/responsive

Version 1.0, approved by the Editorial Board. This statement is reviewed at least every two years. Where this English version and the Indonesian version differ, the Indonesian version prevails.

1. Introduction and Scope

Responsive is a peer-reviewed open access journal published four times a year, in April, August, October, and December, by Universitas Padjadjaran and managed by the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences. The journal publishes original research, conceptual work, and scholarly reviews across bureaucratic and development administration, decentralisation and regional autonomy, economic and public policy, public management and governance, public service management, human resource management, digital governance, politics and democracy, sociology and social sciences, culture, education, history, tourism, gender, media and communication studies, the humanities, and microeconomics and macroeconomics.

The journal is nationally accredited at SINTA 4 under Decree No. 177/E/KPT/2024 of the Director General of Higher Education, Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, Accreditation Period II of 2024, covering Volume 6 Number 1 of 2023 through Volume 10 Number 4 of 2027.

The integrity of the scholarly record depends on the ethical conduct of everyone involved in publication. This statement sets binding standards for the publisher and journal management, editors, reviewers, and authors, and sets out the procedures the journal follows when those standards are breached. It is based on the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics, the ICMJE recommendations on authorship, and applicable Indonesian law, including legislation on copyright and personal data protection. Responsive follows COPE guidance; it does not claim COPE membership.

2. Peer Review Policy and Process

2.1 Type of review. All articles published in Responsive undergo double-blind peer review. Authors and reviewers do not know each other's identity, and reviewers of the same manuscript do not know each other's identity.

2.2 Review workflow.

  1. Authors are expected to check their manuscript for plagiarism and for any other infringement of copyright before submission, and to attach the signed Statement of Manuscript Originality as a supplementary file at the submission stage.
  2. Submitted manuscripts undergo editorial screening for fit with the journal's aims and scope, compliance with the manuscript template and author guidelines, and similarity screening. During this stage the editor may correspond with the author so that the manuscript can be brought to a state suitable for external review, or may return or decline it.
  3. Manuscripts that pass screening are sent to two reviewers for double-blind assessment of their content.
  4. Reviewers assess novelty, objectivity, method, scholarly impact, conclusions, and references.
  5. Reviewers recommend revision, acceptance, or rejection.
  6. The editor decides, taking the reviewers' recommendations into account, whether the manuscript meets the requirements of the journal.
  7. The decision of the Editor-in-Chief is final.
  8. The entire review process is conducted through the journal's Open Journal Systems platform.

Editorial screening is completed within fourteen working days of submission. Reviewers are given three weeks. The target time from submission to first decision is eight weeks. Where the two reviewers' recommendations conflict sharply, the editor appoints a third reviewer.

2.3 Basis for decisions. Decisions rest on originality, methodological soundness, strength of argument, contribution to the field, and fit with the journal's scope. They are not based on the authors' institutional affiliation, nationality, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion, or political beliefs. Acceptance and rejection are decided solely by the editors and are not delegated to any other party, including the publisher or the owning faculty.

3. Responsibilities of Editors

3.1 Publication decisions. Editors are responsible for deciding which submitted manuscripts are published, guided by the policies of the Editorial Board and constrained by the law on defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

3.2 Fair play. Editors evaluate manuscripts solely on their intellectual merit, without discrimination on any of the grounds listed in 2.3.

3.3 Confidentiality. Editors and editorial staff disclose no information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher.

3.4 Conflicts of interest. Unpublished material must not be used in an editor's own research without the authors' written consent. Editors recuse themselves from handling manuscripts where they have competitive, collaborative, financial, familial, or other relationships with the authors, institutions, or funders connected to the work.

3.5 Submissions from editors. Manuscripts authored by the Editor-in-Chief, members of the Editorial Board, or journal staff are handled entirely by an independent editor. Author-editors have no access to the review process for their own manuscripts within the Open Journal Systems platform. The journal limits the proportion of articles in each issue authored by editors and by authors affiliated with Universitas Padjadjaran.

3.6 Vigilance over ethical concerns. Editors respond to any suspicion of ethical breach in submitted manuscripts or published articles under the procedure in Section 9.

3.7 Editorial independence. Editorial decisions are not influenced by commercial interests, funding arrangements, institutional pressure, or considerations of the journal's citation metrics. Responsive neither practises nor tolerates coercive citation of its own articles as a condition of acceptance.

4. Responsibilities of Reviewers

4.1 Contribution to editorial decisions. Peer review assists editors in reaching decisions and assists authors in improving their manuscripts.

4.2 Promptness. Reviewers who feel unqualified, or who cannot complete a review within the three-week period, must notify the editors immediately so that the manuscript can be reassigned.

4.3 Confidentiality. Manuscripts received for review are confidential documents. They must not be shown to, discussed with, or reviewed jointly with others without editorial authorisation, and must not be retained, copied, or used for any purpose once the review is complete. Manuscripts must not be uploaded to generative artificial intelligence tools or to any third-party online service, as set out in Section 7.

4.4 Objectivity. Reviews are conducted objectively and supported by clear argument. Personal criticism of authors is unacceptable.

4.5 Acknowledgement of sources. Reviewers identify relevant published work not cited by the authors and alert the editors to substantial overlap between the manuscript under review and other published work. Reviewers must not suggest citation of their own work without a clear scholarly reason.

4.6 Conflicts of interest. Reviewers must decline assignments where a conflict of interest exists with the authors, institutions, or funders connected to the work. Privileged information obtained through review must not be used for personal advantage.

5. Responsibilities of Authors

5.1 Reporting standards. Authors present an accurate account of the research performed together with an objective discussion of its significance. Data are reported accurately and in sufficient detail to permit replication. Fabrication, falsification, and misleading presentation of data constitute serious misconduct.

5.2 Originality and plagiarism. Manuscripts must be original, previously unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere. Material taken verbatim from another source must be clearly identified so that it is distinguishable from the author's own text. Plagiarism in all its forms is unacceptable, including passing off another's work as one's own, copying substantial portions without attribution, unattributed paraphrase, and self-plagiarism, meaning the reuse of one's own published text or results without citation.

5.3 Multiple and redundant submission. Manuscripts under consideration at another journal must not be submitted to Responsive, and vice versa. Where simultaneous submission is discovered during review or after publication, the sanctions apply. Prior circulation as a preprint, thesis or dissertation, or conference proceedings must be declared at submission with the relevant link or identifier.

5.4 Authorship. An author is someone who has made a significant contribution to the conception, design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation of the work; who has drafted or critically revised the manuscript; who has approved the final version; and who agrees to be accountable for the work. Contributors who do not meet all four criteria are named in the Acknowledgements rather than as authors.

Ghost authorship, meaning omission of a qualifying contributor, gift or honorary authorship, meaning naming a non-contributor, and the sale or purchase of authorship are breaches of this policy. Authors are required to include an author contribution statement using the CRediT taxonomy and to provide an ORCID iD for each author.

All authors sign the Statement of Manuscript Originality submitted with the manuscript and are jointly responsible for its content. Where an article is found to be plagiarised, all authors are subject to the same sanction.

5.5 Changes to authorship after submission. Additions, removals, or reordering of authors are permitted only before acceptance, on written request from the corresponding author stating the reason and accompanied by written agreement from all authors, including any author being added or removed. 

5.6 Disclosure of conflicts of interest. All authors must disclose any financial or non-financial relationship that could be perceived to influence the results or their interpretation, including employment, honoraria, grants, stock ownership, consultancies, patents, board membership, family relationships, and relevant political or advocacy affiliations. This statement appears in the manuscript. Where none exists, authors state explicitly that they declare no conflict of interest.

5.7 Funding statement. Authors identify all sources of research funding with grant numbers, and state the funder's role in study design, data collection and analysis, manuscript preparation, and the decision to publish. Where the research received no external funding, this is stated.

5.8 Data availability. Manuscripts must include a data availability statement indicating where and under what conditions the supporting data can be accessed. Where data cannot be shared, for example because they contain identifiable participant information or because participant consent does not extend to sharing, the reason is stated openly. Authors are expected to retain raw data for a reasonable period after publication and may be asked to make them available to the editors during review.

5.9 Citation practice. Authors cite influential work honestly and proportionately, and are encouraged to manage references using Mendeley, Zotero, or EndNote. Information obtained privately through conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties must not be used without written permission. Excessive self-citation, and citation of any particular journal without scholarly justification, is unacceptable.

5.10 Errors in published work. Authors who discover a significant error in their published work must promptly notify the editors and cooperate in issuing a correction or retraction.

6. Ethics of Research Involving Human Participants

This section applies to all manuscripts reporting research with human participants, including qualitative research based on interviews, focus group discussions, ethnography, surveys, and analysis of personal data.

6.1 Ethical approval. Manuscripts must state that the research received approval from a competent research ethics committee, giving the name of the committee and the approval number. Where the research is exempt under the rules of the authors' institution, the basis for exemption must be stated explicitly. Editors may request a copy of the approval document.

6.2 Informed consent. Authors confirm that all participants were informed of the purpose of the research, the intended use of their data, and their right to decline or withdraw without consequence, and that they consented. The form of consent, whether written or documented oral consent, is stated. For minors or participants lacking legal capacity, guardian consent is stated.

6.3 Confidentiality and anonymity. Manuscripts must not contain information permitting identification of participants, including names, addresses, business names, or combinations of attributes that are jointly identifying, unless participants have given written consent to publication of that information. Authors describe the anonymisation or pseudonymisation procedures applied.

6.4 Vulnerable groups and sensitive research. Research involving vulnerable groups or sensitive subject matter requires additional description of recruitment, power relations between researcher and participants, risk mitigation, and referral arrangements should participants experience distress.

6.5 Personal data protection. Collection, storage, and processing of participants' personal data must comply with applicable Indonesian law. Authors describe storage arrangements and data retention periods.

6.6 Research with indigenous and local communities. Research involving indigenous communities or local knowledge must observe the principles of community consent, equitable benefit, and authorisation from the relevant customary and governmental authorities.

7. Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence

7.1 AI cannot be an author. Generative artificial intelligence tools and large language models cannot be listed as authors, because they cannot take responsibility for the content, integrity, and originality of the work.

7.2 Author disclosure. Authors who use generative artificial intelligence in preparing a manuscript must disclose this in the Acknowledgements, naming the tool and version and describing the scope of use. Disclosure is required for substantial generation or editing of text, generation of images or illustrations, generation of analytical code, and processing or interpretation of data. Use limited to grammar, spelling, and readability does not require disclosure, provided it does not alter scholarly substance.

7.3 Authors remain responsible. Authors bear full responsibility for all content, including the accuracy of every reference. References that cannot be verified to exist are treated as source fabrication and are grounds for rejection or retraction.

7.4 Synthetic data. The use of artificially generated data, interview quotations, or empirical material presented as if collected in the field constitutes data fabrication and is handled under Section 9.

7.5 Obligations of editors and reviewers. Editors and reviewers must not upload manuscripts, portions of manuscripts, or review reports to generative artificial intelligence tools or to other online services that do not guarantee confidentiality. Assessments and review reports must be the product of human judgement, and artificial intelligence must not be used to generate review reports.

8. Similarity Screening

The Editorial Board tolerates no plagiarism. Authors are required to check their manuscript using Turnitin or a comparable similarity checking application before submission, and the journal screens all submissions before peer review.

The acceptable similarity index is 20 per cent, excluding the reference list and properly attributed direct quotations. The index is treated as an initial indicator rather than a decisive measure. Editors examine the report manually, since a high index may reflect nothing more than standard terminology, while a low index may still conceal paraphrastic plagiarism. A manuscript identified as plagiarised is rejected and not sent for review.

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for reviewing any manuscript in which plagiarism is detected and approves action proportionate to its severity:

  1. Where short passages have been copied from another article without acknowledgement of the source, the authors are warned and required to revise the text and cite correctly.
  2. Where a substantial part of another article has been copied without proper quotation or acknowledgement of the source, the manuscript is rejected and the authors may be barred from publishing in Responsive.

Where plagiarism occurs in a form not covered above, the editors may impose sanctions in accordance with editorial policy.

9. Handling Allegations of Misconduct

9.1 Scope. This procedure covers allegations of plagiarism, data fabrication and falsification, duplicate or redundant publication, authorship disputes, undisclosed conflicts of interest, breaches of research ethics, reference fabrication, peer review manipulation, and citation manipulation.

9.2 Reporting. Allegations may be reported to the editors with supporting evidence. Anonymous reports are considered where accompanied by verifiable evidence. The identity of the person raising the concern is kept confidential.

9.3 Procedure. Responsive handles allegations in accordance with the COPE flowcharts, through the following steps:

  1. initial editorial assessment of the substance of the allegation;
  2. a written request for clarification from the corresponding author, setting out the allegation and the evidence, with a response deadline of fourteen days;
  3. assessment of the response, seeking independent expert opinion where necessary;
  4. where necessary, referral to the authors' institution or funder for further investigation, since the journal does not investigate individuals but decides on the status of the article;
  5. decision and follow-up action.

Authors are given an opportunity to respond before any decision is taken. Proceedings are confidential and are conducted without presumption of guilt.

9.4 Possible outcomes. Depending on severity: a request for revision, rejection of the manuscript, publication of a correction, publication of an expression of concern, retraction of the article, notification of the authors' institution and funder, and a bar on further submissions to Responsive for two years.

10. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern

Each of the following is published as a citable, freely accessible notice linked to the original article. The original article is not removed from the site.

10.1 Correction. A corrigendum is issued for author error and an erratum for journal error, where the error affects part of the content but does not invalidate the findings and conclusions.

10.2 Retraction. Issued where findings prove unreliable through serious error or misconduct, where plagiarism is established, where duplicate publication has occurred, where the research lacked adequate ethical basis, or where the review process was manipulated. Retracted articles remain accessible, are clearly watermarked as retracted on every page of the file and on the article landing page, and are accompanied by a notice stating the reason and the party requesting retraction.

10.3 Expression of concern. Issued where serious doubts remain unresolved, for example where an institutional investigation is ongoing or the evidence is not yet conclusive.

10.4 Removal. Undertaken only in exceptional circumstances, such as where an article contains material that is unlawful or that would endanger third parties if accessible. Article metadata are retained.

11. Appeals and Complaints

Authors who disagree with an editorial decision may appeal to the Editor-in-Chief, setting out specific objections supported by scholarly argument. Disagreement with editorial taste or priorities is not an adequate ground for appeal.

Complaints concerning the conduct of editors, reviewers, or the publication process are directed to the Editor-in-Chief. Where the complaint concerns the Editor-in-Chief, it is referred to the leadership of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran. The journal provides an initial response within ten working days.

12. Copyright, Licensing, and Archiving

12.1 Copyright. Copyright in any article published in Responsive is held in full by its authors under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Authors acknowledge Responsive as the first publisher of the work.

12.2 Licence. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, which permits anyone to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to remix, transform, and build upon it for any purpose, including commercial purposes, provided the original authors are credited.

12.3 Self-archiving. Authors may enter into separate, non-exclusive arrangements for the distribution of the published version of the work, for example by depositing it in an institutional repository or including it in a book, provided they acknowledge that the work was first published in Responsive.

12.4 Open access. Responsive provides open access on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports the global exchange of knowledge. Any charge to authors, together with its purpose, is published on the journal website before submission, and payment has no bearing on editorial decisions.

12.5 Digital archiving. The journal uses the LOCKSS system through Open Journal Systems, which creates a distributed archiving system among participating libraries for purposes of permanent preservation and restoration. 

13. Advertising, Marketing, and Revenue

The journal does not accept commercial advertising on its pages. Editorial decisions are wholly separate from any commercial or institutional interest. Responsive is financed by Universitas Padjadjaran through the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences.

14. Contact

Mohammad Benny Alexandri
Editor-in-Chief, Responsive
Building A, 2nd Floor, Dean's Office, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran
Jalan Raya Bandung–Sumedang KM 21, Jatinangor, West Java, Indonesia
Telephone: +62 812 2389 634
Website: https://journals.unpad.ac.id/responsive