Conflict of Interest

Lingue: Jurnal Bahasa, Budaya, dan Sastra requires authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher to disclose and manage conflicts of interest, so that readers can trust the integrity of published work and of the editorial process. This policy follows the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

1. What Is a Conflict of Interest?

A conflict of interest exists when a financial or non-financial interest could influence, or could reasonably be seen to influence, a person’s judgement about a manuscript. A conflict of interest is not in itself wrongdoing; failing to disclose it is. Examples include:

  • Financial: employment, consultancy, grants, honoraria, royalties, or other payments connected with the subject of the research, such as royalties from a textbook or teaching material evaluated in the study.
  • Institutional: studying one’s own institution, students, classes, or programmes. Examples are a lecturer researching their own students, a teacher researching their own school, or a researcher evaluating a language programme, such as a BIPA programme, that they manage.
  • Personal: family ties, close friendship, or personal rivalry with an author, reviewer, or editor.
  • Academic: co-authorship, joint research, or a supervisor–student relationship within the last three years, or directly competing work.

2. Authors

2.1 What must be disclosed

  • All sources of funding for the research and the role of the funder, if any, in the study design, data collection, analysis, or writing.
  • Any relationship with an organisation that could gain or lose from publication of the article, including the authors’ own institution when it is the object of the study.
  • Any personal or academic relationship that could be relevant to the research.

2.2 How to disclose

Every article includes a Conflict of Interest Statement before the References, and the same information is entered in the journal system at submission. If there is no conflict, the authors write: “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” In the anonymised manuscript sent to reviewers, the statement is worded so that it does not reveal the authors’ identities.

3. Reviewers

  • Reviewers declare any potential conflict when invited and decline the invitation if they cannot review impartially. This includes cases where they recognise the work of a colleague, student, supervisor, co-author from the last three years, or competitor.
  • Reviewers do not use unpublished information from a manuscript for their own research or advantage.
  • Reviewers who discover a conflict during the review inform the editor immediately and stop the review.

4. Editors and Editorial Team Members

4.1 General duties

Editors do not handle manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest. In such cases, the Editor-in-Chief assigns another editor, and the conflicted editor has no access to the review records of that manuscript.

4.2 Submissions by editors and editorial team members

  • Members of the editorial team may submit manuscripts to the journal. Their manuscripts are handled entirely by another editor and reviewed under the same double-blind process as all other submissions.
  • Manuscripts submitted by the Editor-in-Chief are handled by a Managing Editor or an editorial board member appointed for that purpose, and the Editor-in-Chief is excluded from all decisions on them.
  • The handling editor and the decision are recorded in the journal system so that independence can be verified.
  • To maintain a diverse author base, articles authored by members of the editorial team should not exceed 20% of the articles in any issue.

5. Publisher and Owning Institution

The journal is published by LP2M, Universitas Islam Negeri Abdul Muthalib Sangadji Ambon. Neither the payment of the Article Processing Charge nor institutional affiliation with the university has any influence on editorial decisions. The APC is requested only after a manuscript has been accepted, and decisions on any fee waiver are made separately from editorial decisions. Manuscripts from authors affiliated with the university receive no preferential treatment in review or scheduling.

6. Undisclosed Conflicts

If an undisclosed conflict of interest comes to light, the journal asks the person concerned to explain. Depending on the case, the journal may re-review the manuscript, publish a correction to add the missing statement, remove a reviewer’s report from the decision, or handle the case under the journal’s Allegation of Research Misconduct policy.

Sources