Publisher-Level Ethical Framework
Sagamedia Teknologi Nusantara, operating as Sagameta, is committed to responsible, transparent, and accountable scholarly publishing. The publisher’s policies and editorial procedures are informed by the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and other recognised principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing.
This statement establishes the minimum ethical principles applicable to journals published by Sagamedia Teknologi Nusantara. Each journal maintains its own detailed policies and procedures appropriate to its disciplinary scope, editorial structure, and publishing model. Where a journal provides a more specific policy, the journal-level policy governs the handling of manuscripts and published articles.
Editorial Independence
Editorial decisions must remain under the authority of each journal’s independent editorial leadership. Manuscripts must be evaluated according to their scholarly quality, originality, methodological soundness, relevance to the journal’s aims and scope, and compliance with applicable ethical requirements.
The publisher, journal owner, sponsors, advertisers, service providers, institutional partners, and financial contributors must not influence manuscript acceptance or rejection for commercial, financial, institutional, personal, or other non-scholarly reasons. Publication charges or financial support must never guarantee acceptance, favourable review, or accelerated editorial treatment.
Peer Review Integrity
Each journal must publicly describe its peer-review model, reviewer-selection process, decision authority, confidentiality requirements, and expected review procedures.
Peer review must be conducted independently, impartially, confidentially, and without inappropriate influence. Reviewers must disclose relevant competing interests and decline assignments when they cannot provide an objective assessment. Editors must take reasonable measures to prevent fabricated reviewer identities, peer-review manipulation, unauthorised delegation, coercion, and other interference with editorial integrity.
The Journal of Hypermedia & Technology-Enhanced Learning uses double-blind external peer review by at least two independent reviewers, as described in its Peer Review Policy.
Originality and Similarity Screening
Journals may use similarity-screening software and editorial assessment to identify potentially inappropriate textual overlap, plagiarism, unattributed reuse, redundant publication, or other originality concerns.
A similarity percentage is an editorial indicator and must not be treated as automatic proof of plagiarism. Editors must assess the nature, context, source, extent, attribution, and scholarly significance of any identified overlap before taking action.
Authors must appropriately cite and disclose reused text, data, figures, code, methods, preprints, conference papers, theses, reports, datasets, translations, and other related works. Simultaneous submission and undisclosed duplicate or redundant publication are not permitted.
Authorship and Contributorship
Authorship must be based on substantial intellectual contribution, participation in manuscript preparation or critical revision, approval of the submitted and accepted versions, and accountability for the integrity of the work.
Gift, guest, ghost, purchased, coerced, or otherwise inappropriate authorship is not permitted. Contributors who do not qualify for authorship should be acknowledged accurately and with their permission.
Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors must be supported by a clear explanation and documented agreement from all affected contributors. Post-publication authorship changes normally require a formal correction.
Conflicts of Interest
Authors, reviewers, editors, editorial staff, publisher representatives, and other persons involved in the publishing process must disclose financial, personal, professional, academic, institutional, or intellectual-property interests that could influence, or reasonably appear to influence, their judgment.
Editors must not handle manuscripts for which they have a relevant conflict. Such manuscripts must be reassigned to an independent and appropriately qualified editor. Manuscripts submitted by editors, Editorial Board members, publisher representatives, or associated persons must receive no preferential treatment and must be handled independently.
Research Integrity and Ethical Oversight
Authors are responsible for the accuracy, authenticity, legality, and ethical integrity of their research. Where applicable, manuscripts must include appropriate information concerning research ethics approval, informed consent, participant privacy, animal welfare, clinical or study registration, data provenance, permissions, funding, and relevant legal or disciplinary requirements.
Fabrication, falsification, selective manipulation, deceptive image alteration, citation manipulation, unethical data practices, and misrepresentation of ethical approval or consent are not permitted.
Allegations of Misconduct
Credible concerns regarding research or publication misconduct may be raised by authors, reviewers, readers, institutions, funders, editors, staff members, or whistleblowers.
Allegations must be assessed impartially, confidentially, and by individuals without relevant conflicts of interest. The affected parties should be given a reasonable opportunity to respond. The publisher or journal may seek clarification, preserve relevant evidence, consult independent experts, or refer matters to an institution, funder, ethics committee, or competent authority when appropriate.
Actions must be proportionate to the available evidence and may include manuscript rejection, suspension of editorial processing, correction, expression of concern, retraction, withdrawal, institutional notification, or another documented response.
Complaints and Appeals
Journals must provide an accessible process for complaints concerning editorial conduct, journal policies, peer-review procedures, publication-ethics handling, staff, editors, publisher conduct, or published content.
Authors may submit a reasoned appeal when relevant new evidence, a material procedural error, an undisclosed conflict of interest, or a significant misunderstanding may have affected an editorial decision. A person involved in the original decision or named in the complaint must not independently determine its outcome.
Complaints and appeals must be handled confidentially, fairly, and through a documented, conflict-free process.
Corrections and Protection of the Scholarly Record
The publisher and its journals are committed to maintaining an accurate and reliable scholarly record. Confirmed errors or integrity concerns may require a correction, expression of concern, retraction, withdrawal, replacement, or removal in exceptional legal or safety circumstances.
Substantive changes must not be made silently. Notices should identify the affected article, explain the reason for the action sufficiently, remain publicly accessible, and be linked to the original record and persistent identifier where appropriate.
Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies
Generative AI systems and AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility or accountability for scholarly work.
Human authors remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, references, data, interpretations, permissions, confidentiality, and integrity of all submitted and published content. Journals may require authors to declare whether and how generative AI or AI-assisted technologies were used.
Reviewers and editors must protect confidential manuscript and editorial information. Confidential submission materials must not be uploaded to external generative AI systems, and scholarly evaluation or editorial decision-making must not be delegated to AI.
Confidentiality and Data Protection
Unpublished manuscripts, reviewer identities, review reports, editorial correspondence, personal information, investigation materials, and other confidential records must be accessed only by authorised persons for legitimate editorial, ethical, legal, or administrative purposes.
Personal information must be processed and retained in accordance with applicable privacy requirements and the privacy policies of the relevant journal and publishing platform.
Policy Governance
Sagamedia Teknologi Nusantara periodically reviews its publisher-level policies and encourages its journals to update their procedures when ethical, legal, editorial, or technological standards change.
Material policy revisions should be dated and communicated publicly. Historical cases should normally be assessed according to the policies and licensing terms applicable at the relevant time, unless a later requirement expressly and lawfully applies retrospectively.
For journal-specific requirements, readers should consult the detailed publication-ethics, peer-review, authorship, plagiarism, generative AI, complaints and appeals, and correction and retraction policies published on the relevant journal website.
For the Journal of Hypermedia & Technology-Enhanced Learning, the journal’s dedicated policies constitute the authoritative requirements governing its manuscripts and published records.