Commitment to Publication Ethics

Publisher-Level Ethical Framework

Policy version: 1.2
Last updated: 20 August 2025

Sagamedia Teknologi Nusantara, operating as Sagameta, is committed to responsible, transparent, independent, 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 framework establishes the minimum publisher-level 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, peer-review model, and publishing practices.

Where a journal provides a more specific policy, the applicable journal-level policy constitutes the authoritative operational requirement for the handling of manuscripts, editorial decisions, published articles, corrections, complaints, and related journal-specific matters.

Editorial Independence

Scientific editorial decisions must remain under the authority of each journal’s authorised and independent editorial leadership.

Manuscripts must be evaluated according to relevant scholarly criteria, including originality, methodological or analytical soundness, relevance to the journal’s aims and scope, clarity, scholarly contribution, research integrity, and compliance with applicable ethical requirements.

The publisher, journal owner, sponsors, advertisers, service providers, institutional partners, financial contributors, or other parties must not influence manuscript acceptance or rejection for commercial, financial, institutional, personal, reputational, or other non-scholarly reasons.

Publication charges, sponsorship, institutional relationships, advertising arrangements, financial support, or other commercial considerations must never guarantee manuscript acceptance, favourable review, preferential treatment, or inappropriate acceleration of editorial decisions.

Editors must be able to exercise their editorial responsibilities without inappropriate interference from publisher representatives or other interested parties.

Peer Review Integrity

Each journal must publicly describe its peer-review model and provide sufficient information for authors, reviewers, and readers to understand how manuscripts are evaluated.

Journal-level peer-review policies should identify, where applicable:

  • the peer-review model used;
  • the expected number and independence of reviewers;
  • reviewer-selection principles;
  • confidentiality requirements;
  • reviewer responsibilities;
  • editor and decision authority;
  • management of competing interests;
  • procedures for revisions and editorial decisions; and
  • mechanisms used to protect peer-review integrity.

Peer review must be conducted independently, impartially, confidentially, and without inappropriate influence.

Reviewers must disclose relevant competing interests and should decline assignments when they cannot provide an objective, timely, and appropriately qualified assessment.

Editors must take reasonable measures to identify and prevent fabricated reviewer identities, peer-review manipulation, inappropriate reviewer suggestions, unauthorised delegation, coercive citation practices, undisclosed conflicts, review rings, or other forms of interference with editorial integrity.

Peer-review recommendations inform editorial decisions but do not replace the independent judgment and responsibility of the authorised editor.

Originality and Similarity Screening

Journals may use similarity-screening software, editorial assessment, reference checking, or other appropriate tools to identify potentially inappropriate textual overlap, plagiarism, unattributed reuse, duplicate submission, redundant publication, or other originality concerns.

A similarity percentage must be treated only as an editorial indicator and must not be interpreted automatically as proof of plagiarism or publication misconduct.

Editors should assess the nature, context, source, extent, attribution, and scholarly significance of identified overlap before determining whether further action is necessary.

Authors are responsible for appropriately citing and, where required, disclosing reused or related material, including:

  • previously published text;
  • data and datasets;
  • figures and tables;
  • software and code;
  • methods and protocols;
  • preprints;
  • conference papers or abstracts;
  • theses and dissertations;
  • reports and working papers;
  • translations; and
  • other related scholarly outputs.

Simultaneous submission of substantially the same manuscript to more than one journal is not permitted.

Undisclosed duplicate publication, redundant publication, plagiarism, and other misleading forms of prior dissemination are not permitted.

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must reflect genuine scholarly contribution and accountability.

Authors should have made substantial contributions to the conception, design, execution, analysis, interpretation, or other significant intellectual aspects of the work; participated in drafting or critically revising the manuscript; approved the version submitted and, where applicable, the version accepted for publication; and agreed to be accountable for the integrity of their contributions.

Gift, guest, honorary, ghost, purchased, coerced, or otherwise inappropriate authorship is not permitted.

Contributors who do not meet the applicable criteria for authorship should be acknowledged accurately and, where appropriate, with their permission.

Journals may require contributor statements using recognised contributorship frameworks or other discipline-appropriate mechanisms.

Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must be supported by:

  • a clear explanation for the requested change;
  • documented agreement from all affected authors or contributors; and
  • any additional information reasonably required by the editor.

Authorship changes after publication normally require a formal correction or other transparent amendment to the scholarly record.

Disputes concerning authorship should not be resolved solely on the basis of unsupported claims. Where necessary, journals may request documentation or refer unresolved disputes to the relevant institution or other competent authority.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers, editors, editorial staff, publisher representatives, and other persons materially involved in the publishing process must disclose relevant interests that could influence, or reasonably appear to influence, their judgment.

Potential competing interests may include financial, personal, professional, academic, institutional, contractual, commercial, or intellectual-property relationships.

The existence of a competing interest does not automatically invalidate participation in scholarly publishing. The interest must, however, be disclosed and managed appropriately.

Editors must not independently handle manuscripts for which they have a relevant conflict of interest.

Such manuscripts should be reassigned to an independent and appropriately qualified editor who has no relevant conflict.

Submissions from editors, Editorial Board members, publisher representatives, associated persons, or affiliated institutions must receive no preferential treatment and must be handled through an independent editorial process.

Reviewers must decline invitations where a relevant conflict prevents an impartial evaluation.

Research Integrity and Ethical Oversight

Authors are responsible for the accuracy, authenticity, legality, and ethical integrity of their research.

Where applicable to the study design and discipline, manuscripts should provide appropriate information concerning:

  • research ethics approval;
  • ethics committee or institutional review arrangements;
  • informed consent;
  • consent for publication;
  • participant privacy and confidentiality;
  • animal welfare;
  • clinical, trial, protocol, or study registration;
  • permissions and copyright;
  • data provenance;
  • research funding;
  • institutional requirements;
  • relevant legal requirements; and
  • discipline-specific ethical standards.

Authors must not fabricate, falsify, selectively manipulate, deceptively alter, or materially misrepresent research data, images, results, methods, ethical approval, consent, or other elements of the scholarly record.

Citation manipulation, deceptive reporting, inappropriate data practices, falsified documentation, misleading image manipulation, and misrepresentation of research procedures are not permitted.

Editors may request supporting documentation when necessary to assess compliance with ethical requirements.

Data, Materials, and Reproducibility

Sagameta supports appropriate transparency concerning research data, materials, methods, code, protocols, and other research outputs where such transparency is relevant and feasible within the applicable discipline.

Authors should provide sufficient information to support the evaluation, interpretation, verification, and, where appropriate, reproducibility of their research.

Individual journals may establish discipline-appropriate requirements concerning:

  • data-availability statements;
  • research datasets;
  • source code or software;
  • analytical scripts;
  • research materials;
  • protocols;
  • supplementary files;
  • repository deposition; and
  • documentation necessary to understand or reproduce reported findings.

Open sharing of data or materials is not always possible or ethically appropriate.

Legitimate restrictions may arise from:

  • participant privacy;
  • confidentiality obligations;
  • informed-consent limitations;
  • intellectual-property rights;
  • legal restrictions;
  • contractual obligations;
  • commercial sensitivity;
  • national or institutional security considerations; or
  • other justified ethical or practical constraints.

Where relevant, authors should explain material restrictions on access transparently.

Fabricated, falsified, deceptively manipulated, or materially misrepresented data, images, code, analytical outputs, or research records are not permitted.

Allegations of Research or Publication Misconduct

Credible concerns regarding possible research or publication misconduct may be raised by authors, reviewers, readers, institutions, funders, editors, staff members, whistleblowers, or other parties.

Allegations should be assessed impartially, confidentially, proportionately, and by individuals without relevant conflicts of interest.

An allegation does not in itself establish misconduct.

Where appropriate, affected parties should be given a reasonable opportunity to respond to material concerns before a final publication-related action is taken.

Depending on the nature of the concern, the journal or publisher may:

  • request clarification or supporting documentation;
  • preserve relevant editorial records and evidence;
  • suspend editorial processing while concerns are assessed;
  • consult independent experts;
  • contact co-authors or relevant contributors;
  • seek information from an institution, ethics committee, funder, or competent authority;
  • issue a correction, expression of concern, or retraction where justified; or
  • take another proportionate and documented action.

Institutions normally have primary responsibility for conducting formal investigations into the conduct of their researchers. Journals and publishers are responsible for protecting the integrity of the scholarly record and may act on sufficiently reliable evidence when appropriate.

Good-faith complainants and whistleblowers should not be subjected to retaliation through the editorial process.

Complaints and Appeals

Journals must provide an accessible process for submitting complaints concerning matters such as:

  • editorial conduct;
  • journal policies;
  • peer-review procedures;
  • publication-ethics handling;
  • unreasonable procedural irregularities;
  • staff or editor conduct;
  • publisher conduct; and
  • published content.

Authors may submit a reasoned appeal when they believe that relevant new evidence, a material procedural error, an undisclosed competing interest, a significant factual misunderstanding, or another substantial issue may have affected an editorial decision.

An appeal is not intended merely to provide an additional round of review after an author disagrees with a properly reached editorial judgment.

A person who was materially involved in the original disputed decision, or who is personally named in a complaint, should not independently determine the final outcome of that complaint or appeal.

Complaints and appeals must be handled confidentially, fairly, consistently, and through a documented process that appropriately manages conflicts of interest.

Journal-specific complaints and appeals should normally be submitted through the contact route identified by the relevant journal.

Concerns involving publisher conduct, unresolved journal-level matters, or conflicts involving senior journal leadership may be referred to Sagamedia Teknologi Nusantara through the publisher’s designated contact channel.

Corrections and Protection of the Scholarly Record

Sagameta and its journals are committed to maintaining an accurate, transparent, and reliable scholarly record.

When material errors, omissions, integrity concerns, or other significant problems are identified after publication, appropriate action may include:

  • correction;
  • expression of concern;
  • retraction;
  • replacement where justified; or
  • removal in exceptional legal, privacy, security, or safety circumstances.

The appropriate response should reflect the nature and seriousness of the issue.

Minor errors that do not materially affect the scholarly record may be handled differently from errors that materially affect interpretation, attribution, validity, ethics, or reliability.

Substantive post-publication changes must not be made silently.

Where formal action is required, the relevant notice should:

  • identify the affected article clearly;
  • state the type of action taken;
  • explain the reason sufficiently and transparently;
  • remain publicly accessible;
  • identify who initiated the action where appropriate;
  • be linked to the original article; and
  • preserve the relationship with the article’s persistent identifier where technically appropriate.

Retraction is intended to correct the scholarly record and alert readers to work that is materially unreliable or seriously affected by publication-integrity concerns. It must not be used merely to punish authors.

Removal of published content should be exceptional and limited to circumstances where continued public availability creates a substantial legal, privacy, security, or safety risk that cannot reasonably be addressed through another mechanism.

Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies

Generative AI systems and AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility, accountability, or legal and ethical obligations for scholarly work.

Human authors remain fully responsible for all submitted and published content, including:

  • originality;
  • accuracy;
  • references and citations;
  • data and analysis;
  • interpretation;
  • permissions;
  • confidentiality;
  • disclosure;
  • intellectual-property compliance; and
  • overall integrity of the work.

Individual journals may require authors to disclose whether and how generative AI or AI-assisted technologies were used during research, analysis, writing, translation, editing, coding, image production, or other stages of manuscript preparation.

Use of AI-assisted technologies does not transfer responsibility from human authors.

Reviewers and editors must protect confidential manuscript and editorial information.

Confidential submissions, review reports, unpublished data, author-identifying information, editorial correspondence, or other confidential materials must not be uploaded to external generative AI systems where doing so could compromise confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, or data protection.

Scholarly evaluation, peer-review judgment, and final editorial decision-making must not be delegated to generative AI.

Editors and reviewers remain personally responsible for the assessments and decisions submitted under their names.

Confidentiality and Data Protection

Unpublished manuscripts, reviewer identities where protected by the applicable peer-review model, review reports, editorial correspondence, investigation materials, personal information, and other confidential records must be accessed only by authorised persons for legitimate editorial, ethical, legal, technical, or administrative purposes.

Editors, reviewers, staff members, and publisher representatives must not use confidential information obtained through the publishing process for inappropriate personal, professional, academic, financial, or competitive advantage.

Personal information must be collected, processed, stored, and retained in accordance with applicable legal requirements, legitimate publishing needs, and the privacy policies of the relevant journal and publishing platform.

Access to confidential records should be limited according to role and legitimate operational necessity.

Where publication-ethics investigations require information to be shared with institutions, funders, ethics bodies, legal authorities, or other competent organisations, disclosure should be limited to information reasonably necessary for the matter under consideration.

Policy Governance

Sagamedia Teknologi Nusantara periodically reviews its publisher-level policies and encourages its journals to update their procedures when relevant ethical, legal, editorial, technological, or scholarly-publishing standards change.

Material policy revisions should be:

  • documented;
  • dated;
  • communicated publicly where appropriate; and
  • implemented consistently.

Changes to publisher-level policies should not normally be applied retrospectively in a manner that unfairly alters the rights, responsibilities, licence terms, or publication conditions that applied at the relevant time.

Historical manuscripts, articles, and publication-ethics cases should normally be assessed according to the policies, publishing agreements, and licensing terms applicable at the relevant time, except where a later requirement must lawfully or ethically apply.

Sagameta may revise this framework when necessary to maintain alignment with recognised scholarly-publishing standards, legal requirements, technological developments, or emerging research-integrity risks.

Journal-Specific Policies

This framework establishes publisher-level minimum ethical standards. It does not replace the detailed operational policies maintained by individual journals.

Journal-specific policies constitute the authoritative requirements applicable to manuscript preparation, submission, peer review, editorial decisions, publication, corrections, appeals, and other journal-level procedures.

For the Journal of Hypermedia & Technology-Enhanced Learning (J-HyTEL), authors, reviewers, editors, and readers should consult the journal’s current policies concerning:

  • aims and scope;
  • author guidelines;
  • peer review;
  • publication ethics;
  • authorship and contributorship;
  • research ethics;
  • competing interests;
  • originality and prior dissemination;
  • generative AI and AI-assisted technologies;
  • complaints and appeals;
  • corrections and retractions;
  • copyright and licensing;
  • open access;
  • data availability;
  • publication charges; and
  • other journal-specific requirements.

Where a J-HyTEL policy provides more detailed or specific requirements than this publisher-level framework, the applicable J-HyTEL policy governs the handling of its manuscripts and published records.

Publisher Contact

Questions concerning this publisher-level ethical framework, publisher conduct, or matters that cannot appropriately be resolved through a journal’s normal procedures may be directed to:

Sagamedia Teknologi Nusantara (Sagameta)
No. 7, Muhajirin II, Asra Street
Dadok Tunggul Hitam, Koto Tangah
Padang City, West Sumatra 25176
Indonesia

Email: sagamedia@edutech-journals.org
Phone: +62 812-7566-3837