Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

JOTTER: Journal of Teacher Training and Educational Research is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, and academic responsibility. This statement applies to all authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher.
JOTTER publishes scholarly works in teacher education, professional development, educational research, educational policy, instructional innovation, educational technology, and related fields. All manuscripts submitted to JOTTER undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Editorial decisions are based on academic merit, originality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal scope, and contribution to the field.
This Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement is informed by the COPE Core Practices and relevant guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

1. Responsibilities of Authors
1.1 Reporting Standards
Authors must present an accurate, honest, and objective account of their research. Manuscripts must include sufficient methodological detail, references, and supporting information to enable readers to understand and evaluate the study. Fabrication, falsification, selective reporting, misleading interpretation, manipulation of data, or knowingly inaccurate statements are unacceptable.

1.2 Originality and Plagiarism
Authors must ensure that submitted manuscripts are original works and have not been published previously elsewhere. Any ideas, quotations, data, figures, tables, instruments, or findings obtained from other sources must be properly cited and acknowledged.
JOTTER does not tolerate plagiarism, self-plagiarism, copying without attribution, substantial paraphrasing without citation, duplicate publication, or simultaneous submission to more than one journal. The journal may use plagiarism-detection tools during editorial screening.

1.3 Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication
Authors must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time. Authors must not submit manuscripts that substantially duplicate previously published work unless there is a legitimate reason, clear disclosure, permission from relevant editors, and proper acknowledgement of the original publication.

1.4 Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the research and manuscript. All authors must approve the final manuscript version, agree to its submission to JOTTER, and accept responsibility for the integrity of the work.Gift authorship, honorary authorship, guest authorship, and ghost authorship are not acceptable. The corresponding author is responsible for communication with the journal and for confirming that all co-authors have approved the submitted manuscript.

1.5 Data Access, Availability, and Retention
Authors should retain research data, instruments, consent records, coding schemes, and supporting materials for a reasonable period after publication. Authors may be asked to provide anonymized data, instruments, raw data, ethical approval documents, or supporting materials for editorial review.
Data sharing should not compromise participant confidentiality, privacy rights, institutional regulations, copyright restrictions, or legal obligations.

1.6 Research Ethics, Human Participants, and Informed Consent
Research involving human participants, including students, teachers, lecturers, parents, school personnel, administrators, or other educational stakeholders, must comply with applicable institutional and national ethical requirements.
Authors must ensure that participants are treated respectfully and fairly, informed consent is obtained where appropriate, participant identities are protected, and personal data are anonymized or pseudonymized when necessary. Permissions from schools, universities, institutions, or relevant authorities must be obtained when required.
For research involving minors, consent from parents or legal guardians must be obtained where applicable. Authors must provide ethical clearance or institutional approval when required by the study context or requested by the editor.

1.7 Privacy, Confidentiality, and Anonymity
Authors must protect the privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity of research participants. Identifying information must be removed or appropriately protected in manuscripts, datasets, quotations, images, tables, appendices, and supplementary materials unless explicit informed consent for identification has been obtained.
Where participants, parents, legal guardians, schools, or institutions explicitly agree to identification, authors must ensure that such consent is documented and ethically appropriate.

1.8 Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure
Authors must disclose any financial, professional, institutional, personal, political, or other relationship that may influence, or appear to influence, the research or publication process. Authors must also disclose all relevant sources of funding, grants, sponsorship, institutional support, or material assistance.

1.9 Use of Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI
Artificial intelligence tools, including generative AI tools, cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the accuracy, originality, integrity, or ethical compliance of a manuscript.
Authors remain fully responsible for all content submitted to JOTTER. Substantial use of AI for drafting, translation, editing, coding, data analysis, image generation, or other research-related purposes should be disclosed in the manuscript or cover letter where relevant.
Authors must not use AI tools to fabricate data, generate false citations, create misleading results, misrepresent authorship, upload confidential participant data to public AI platforms, or generate fraudulent peer-review materials.

1.10 AI Disclosure and Author Guidelines
Authors must disclose any substantial use of artificial intelligence or generative AI tools in the preparation of a manuscript, including use for drafting, translation, language editing, coding, data analysis, image generation, or other research-related activities. Details of acceptable and unacceptable AI use are provided in the JOTTER Author Guidelines. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, ethical compliance, confidentiality, and integrity of all submitted content, including content prepared with AI assistance.

1.11 Fundamental Errors in Published Works
When authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work, they must promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief and cooperate with the journal in issuing a correction, clarification, or retraction where necessary.

2. Responsibilities of Reviewers
2.1 Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer review assists editors in making publication decisions and helps authors improve their manuscripts. Reviewers should provide constructive, respectful, evidence-based, and academically relevant comments.

2.2 Confidentiality
Manuscripts received for review are confidential documents. Reviewers must not share manuscripts with others without editor permission, copy or distribute unpublished content, use unpublished information for personal benefit, or upload manuscripts and reviewer comments to public AI tools or third-party platforms without authorization.

2.3 Objectivity and Fairness
Reviews must be conducted objectively. Reviewers should avoid personal criticism, hostile language, discriminatory comments, unsupported opinions, or bias related to nationality, institution, gender, ethnicity, religion, or academic status.
Comments should focus on originality, methodology, ethical soundness, clarity, relevance, and contribution to the field.

2.4 Promptness
Reviewers who feel unqualified to review a manuscript or cannot complete the review within the requested timeframe should notify the editor promptly and decline the invitation.

2.5 Acknowledgement of Sources
Reviewers should identify important published works that have not been cited by the authors. Reviewers should also notify the editor if they detect plagiarism, duplication, substantial overlap, citation manipulation, or other ethical concerns.

2.6 Conflicts of Interest
Reviewers must declare any conflict of interest that may affect their impartiality. Reviewers should decline assignments where they have a personal, professional, institutional, financial, supervisory, collaborative, or competitive relationship with the authors or their institutions.

3. Responsibilities of Editors and Editorial Board Members
3.1 Publication Decisions
Editors are responsible for deciding which manuscripts are accepted for publication. Decisions should be based on academic merit, originality, methodological quality, ethical compliance, relevance to JOTTER’s scope, and contribution to knowledge.
Editors may consult reviewers, associate editors, editorial board members, or external experts when necessary.

3.2 Fair Play and Non-Discrimination
Editors must evaluate manuscripts without discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, disability, political views, institutional affiliation, academic seniority, sexual orientation, or other personal characteristics.

3.3 Confidentiality
Editors and editorial staff must maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts. Information about a manuscript may only be shared with the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher when necessary for the editorial process.

3.4 Editorial Conflicts of Interest
Editors must not handle manuscripts where they have a conflict of interest with the author, institution, funding source, research project, or subject matter. This includes manuscripts written by the editor themselves, family members, close associates, current or former students, supervisors, supervisees, close collaborators, or colleagues from the same institution where impartiality may be questioned. Such manuscripts must be assigned to another qualified editor with no relevant conflict of interest.

3.5 Ethical Concerns and Investigations
Editors must respond appropriately to ethical concerns, allegations of misconduct, complaints, and appeals. Editors may request clarification from authors, ethical approval documents, original data, authorship explanations, funding disclosures, institutional confirmations, or supporting evidence when necessary.

3.6 Editorial Independence
Editorial decisions must not be influenced by advertising, sponsorship, personal relationships, commercial interests, political pressure, or institutional interests.

4. Double-Blind Peer Review Policy
JOTTER applies a double-blind peer-review process. During the review process, reviewers do not know the identity of the author or authors, and authors do not know the identity of the reviewer or reviewers.
Editors and authorized editorial staff manage the review process confidentially. Authors should remove identifying information from manuscripts where required. Reviewers should avoid comments that reveal their identity.
Manuscripts that proceed to peer review may be evaluated by at least two qualified reviewers with relevant expertise, subject to reviewer availability and editorial discretion.
Authors are expected to respond to reviewer and editor comments systematically and respectfully. A request for revision does not guarantee acceptance of a manuscript.

5. Research Integrity and Publication Malpractice
JOTTER does not tolerate any form of research misconduct or publication malpractice.
Misconduct may include, but is not limited to, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, simultaneous submission, data fabrication, data falsification, image manipulation, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, improper authorship attribution, guest authorship, honorary authorship, ghost authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, false ethical approval claims, false informed consent claims, misrepresentation of funding sources, misuse of confidential information, or use of AI tools to fabricate content, citations, data, findings, or peer-review materials.

6. Allegations of Research Misconduct
JOTTER takes all allegations of research misconduct seriously. Allegations may be raised by authors, reviewers, editors, readers, institutions, or other stakeholders.
Concerns may relate to plagiarism, duplicate publication, authorship disputes, data fabrication, data falsification, unethical research, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or other forms of unethical conduct.
Upon receiving an allegation, the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board may review the available evidence, request clarification from the author or authors, request original data or ethical approval documents, consult relevant reviewers or external experts, and contact relevant institutions or research bodies when necessary.
The journal will maintain confidentiality as far as reasonably possible and provide the concerned author or authors with an opportunity to respond.
Where misconduct is confirmed, JOTTER may reject the manuscript, suspend editorial processing, request revision, publish a correction or corrigendum, publish an expression of concern, retract a published article, inform relevant institutions or funders, or restrict future submissions where appropriate.
Unsupported or unsubstantiated allegations may be dismissed after appropriate evaluation.

7. Complaints, Appeals, and Ethical Concern Reporting
JOTTER encourages authors, reviewers, readers, and other stakeholders to report concerns regarding publication ethics, editorial processes, peer review, conflicts of interest, discrimination, misconduct, or published content.
Reports should include a clear description of the concern, relevant manuscript or article details, supporting evidence where available, and contact information for follow-up communication.
All reports will be handled fairly, respectfully, and confidentially to the extent possible.
Authors may appeal editorial decisions where they believe that a significant procedural error, bias, conflict of interest, or factual misunderstanding has occurred. Appeals should be submitted in writing to the Editor-in-Chief with a clear explanation and relevant supporting evidence.

8. Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern
8.1 Corrections or Corrigenda
A correction may be issued when an article contains an error that does not invalidate the overall findings but requires clarification, amendment, or correction.

8.2 Expressions of Concern
An expression of concern may be issued when there are serious concerns about the reliability, ethical conduct, or integrity of a published article, but the investigation is incomplete or inconclusive.

8.3 Retractions
An article may be retracted when there is clear evidence of major error, plagiarism, fabricated or falsified data, unethical research, duplicate publication, serious authorship problems, or major violations of publication ethics.
Retraction notices will clearly identify the article and explain the reason for retraction where appropriate.
Retracted articles will normally remain available in the journal archive to preserve the integrity of the scholarly record. The article will be clearly marked as “Retracted,” and a retraction notice will explain the reason for the action where appropriate. Removal of an article will only be considered in exceptional circumstances, including legal requirements, serious privacy concerns, copyright violations, or risks of harm.

9. Publisher Responsibilities
Yayasan Sahabat Literasi Edukasi dan Publikasi Bandung, as the publisher of JOTTER, supports editorial independence and responsible scholarly publishing.
The publisher shall not interfere with editorial decisions based on commercial, political, personal, or institutional interests. The publisher supports the editorial team in handling ethical concerns, complaints, appeals, corrections, retractions, and allegations of misconduct.

10. Contact for Publication Ethics Concerns

Questions, complaints, appeals, ethical concerns, or allegations of misconduct related to JOTTER may be submitted to: jurnaljotter@gmail.com