Research Misconduct and Complaints
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Research Misconduct
Research misconduct refers to fabrication, falsification, citation manipulation, or plagiarism in producing, performing, or reviewing research and writing an article. Editors must ensure the accuracy and integrity of the scientific record.
In cases of suspected misconduct, the editors and editorial board will use COPE’s best practices to resolve the complaint and fairly address the misconduct. The process includes:
- Verifying the allegation and assessing whether it is consistent with the research misconduct definition, while checking for conflicts of interest among those alleging misconduct.
- Sharing the allegations with the corresponding author, who is requested to provide a detailed response on behalf of all co-authors.
- Involving experts (such as statistical reviewers) for additional evaluations if necessary.
- Contacting the author’s institution or employing organization if an official institutional investigation is required.
A submitted manuscript containing misconduct will be rejected. If a published paper is found to contain misconduct, a retraction can be published and linked to the original article. An Expression of Concern may be issued by the Editor-in-Chief while an investigation into suspected misconduct is ongoing or inconclusive. Clarifications or minor issues may be addressed via Letters to the Editor and correction notices. Ultimately, authors, journals, and institutions are obliged to ensure the accuracy of the scientific record.
Complaints and Appeals
JKI has a clear procedure for handling complaints against the journal, editorial staff, editorial board, or publisher. The scope of complaints includes anything related to the journal’s business process, such as the editorial process, citation manipulation, unfair editors/reviewers, and peer-review manipulation.
Complaints will be processed according to the COPE guidelines and should be sent by email to: jurnal.keperawatan@ui.ac.id.
- Complaints Handling Workflow: All received complaints are formally acknowledged. The investigation is conducted by the Editor-in-Chief or an independent Editorial Board member free of any conflict of interest. A written explanation of the findings and resolution will be communicated to the complainant upon completion of the investigation.
- Appeals Against Editorial Decisions: Authors have the right to appeal a rejection decision if they believe the decision was based on a misunderstanding of the science or evidence of peer-review bias. Appeals must be submitted in writing with detailed scientific justification. Re-evaluations are considered once and determined by the Editor-in-Chief or a designated section editor.
Discussions and Corrections After Publication
JKI accepts reader discussions of, and corrections to, published articles. Readers can contact the Editor-in-Chief by email to discuss and suggest corrections. If accepted, the discussions and corrections will be published in the next issue as Letters to the Editor. The respective authors can respond to these discussions by sending their replies, which may be published as Replies to Letters to the Editor.
In accordance with COPE guidelines and international publishing standards, formal post-publication amendments and corrections are categorized and managed as follows:
1. Formal Corrections (Errata and Corrigenda)
Formal correction notices are issued for errors of fact, missing metadata, or omitted contributions that impact the accuracy or indexing of the article without invalidating its overall scientific conclusions.
- Erratum: Issued for significant errors introduced by the journal or publisher during the editing, layout, or production stage.
- Corrigendum: Issued for significant errors introduced by the author(s) during manuscript preparation, data analysis, or reporting. Corrigenda require approval from all co-authors prior to publication.
- Correction Standards: Correction notices are published as separate, citable items in the next available issue, assigned their own Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and bidirectionally linked to the original paper. Minor typographical or formatting errors that do not affect the scientific meaning will not be granted a formal correction notice.
2. Retractions
If a published paper is found to contain fundamental errors that invalidate its findings, or if research misconduct (e.g., data fabrication, duplicate publication, uncredited plagiarism) is confirmed, a formal Retraction Notice will be published following COPE Retraction Guidelines.
- The Retraction Notice will state who is retracting the article and the specific reasons for retraction.
- The original PDF remains accessible to preserve the historical record, but each page will be permanently watermarked as "RETRACTED".
3. Article Removal
In extremely rare circumstances involving legal court orders, severe privacy breaches, or contents that pose an immediate public health hazard, JKI may execute an Article Removal. In such cases, the article text is removed, while the article metadata and landing page are retained alongside a clear removal statement.