Allegation of research misconduct

SENTRI: Jurnal Riset Ilmiah

1. Policy Statement

SENTRI: Jurnal Riset Ilmiah (E-ISSN: 2963-1130), published monthly by LPPM Institut Pendidikan Nusantara Global under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Dr. Sumardiana, M.Pd., is thoroughly committed to upholding the highest standards of research integrity, academic rigor, intellectual transparency, and ethical publishing. The journal treats all allegations of research misconduct with utmost seriousness, ensuring that every inquiry is executed objectively, impartially, confidentially, and expeditiously. Research misconduct directly degrades the credibility of scholarly inquiry, damages institutional accountability, and undermines academic trust; therefore, SENTRI maintains robust procedures for receiving, assessing, investigating, and resolving allegations involving both submitted manuscripts and published literature. This policy applies uniformly across all submitting authors, co-authors, peer reviewers, and editorial board members participating in the publication process.

2. Definition of Research Misconduct

Research misconduct comprises intentional, reckless, or grossly negligent deviations from established standards of scientific integrity and academic publishing ethics across any phase of research conception, experimental design, data collection, statistical computation, manuscript drafting, peer review, or post-publication archiving. Specific forms of misconduct recognized by SENTRI include:

  • Fabrication: The fraudulent creation, manufacturing, or invention of non-existent data, empirical measurements, interview transcripts, experimental observations, or simulated outcomes presented as authentic findings.

  • Falsification: The deliberate manipulation, selective omission, illicit truncation, or distortion of research materials, equipment parameters, process workflows, statistical representations, or digital images to deceptively present preferred findings.

  • Plagiarism: The appropriation, reproduction, or uncredited paraphrasing of another scholar’s text, theoretical models, concepts, datasets, or methodological designs without explicit, accurate attribution and formal citation.

  • Duplicate or Redundant Submission/Publication: Submitting identical or substantively overlapping manuscripts simultaneously to multiple publication venues (parallel submission), or republishing previously disseminated empirical findings without transparent disclosure, editorial permission, and scholarly justification.

  • Authorship Misconduct: The inclusion of gift, guest, or honorary authors who fail to satisfy established intellectual authorship criteria, the omission of substantive contributors (ghost authorship), the unauthorized alteration of authorship listings during editorial processing, or the misrepresentation of individual contributions.

  • Publication Process Manipulation: Inappropriate interventions aimed at corrupting editorial governance, such as organizing citation cartels, applying coercive citation pressures, orchestrating fraudulent peer-review rings, submitting fabricated reviewer profiles, or failing to disclose financial and non-financial conflicts of interest.

  • Misuse of Empirical Data and Visual Representations: The unauthorized adjustment, deceptive splicing, computational concealment, or fraudulent alteration of graphical figures, tables, psychometric metrics, or empirical analytical data.

  • Undisclosed or Irresponsible Use of Artificial Intelligence: Utilizing generative artificial intelligence technologies to invent spurious bibliographies, synthesize fictitious empirical datasets, or draft substantive scholarly claims in violation of the journal’s transparency directives. The responsible employment of AI tools for basic linguistic enhancement or procedural coding does not inherently constitute misconduct, provided all such applications are fully disclosed and verifiable.

3. Reporting Allegations

Any academic, researcher, peer reviewer, institutional officer, or general reader holding a well-founded, good-faith concern regarding potential research misconduct within a manuscript submitted to or published by SENTRI: Jurnal Riset Ilmiah may convey a formal report directly to the editorial office via official editorial correspondence. To enable a meaningful investigation, informants are urged to submit detailed, evidence-supported dossiers rather than speculative claims. Formal complaints should identify the manuscript title, authors, and unique DOI link (https://doi.org/10.55681/sentri) where applicable, accompany a clear narrative outlining the suspected breach, provide verifiable documentary evidence (such as similarity reports, source documents, or comparative data matrices), and supply contact channels for necessary follow-up communications. The editorial office strictly protects the identity of whistleblowers acting in good faith.

4. Initial Assessment

Upon formal receipt of an allegation, the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Sumardiana, M.Pd., or a designated senior member of the editorial board will perform an initial preliminary assessment to establish whether the complaint falls within the jurisdiction of scientific integrity and presents verifiable, substantive evidence. This stage involves scrutinizing the comparative documentation, examining the submitted or published galleys, re-evaluating similarity indices, and cross-checking raw statistical analyses. If an allegation lacks concrete evidence, represents trivial editorial oversights readily resolved via standard author communication, or falls entirely outside the journal’s remit, the case will be formally closed with internal documentation detailing the rationale.

5. Investigation Procedure

Whenever the initial review reveals credible indications of research misconduct, the journal initiates a formalized investigation adhering strictly to Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) procedural flowcharts. The corresponding author is promptly notified in writing regarding the specific concerns raised and granted a reasonable timeline (typically 14 to 21 business days) to submit an official institutional clarification and provide original raw datasets, laboratory registries, or ethics committee approvals. The editorial board may convene an ad-hoc investigative panel comprising independent discipline experts or institutional representatives to impartially scrutinize the veracity of the defense. Throughout the inquiry, all parties receive equitable opportunities to present factual rebuttals before final determinations are rendered.

6. Confidentiality and Fair Treatment

SENTRI maintains strict confidentiality across all assessment and investigatory operations, restricting sensitive information solely to the investigative committee, affected authors, reviewers, and institutional oversight bodies directly required to evaluate the matter. An unproven allegation is never treated as confirmed misconduct, and no reputational or publishing penalties are levied based solely on unsubstantiated accusations. Furthermore, the journal maintains zero tolerance toward retaliatory actions aimed at individuals raising integrity concerns in good faith, while reserving the right to respond appropriately against verifiably malicious, bad-faith complaints.

7. Editorial Actions and Sanctions

The determinations of the editorial board correspond proportionally to the severity, intent, and impact of the established misconduct, alongside the publication stage of the manuscript. Applied editorial measures may include:

  • Issuing formal instructional warnings and demanding manuscript revisions for minor, inadvertent oversights.

  • Suspending manuscript processing pending the submission of verifiable raw data or ethical clearances.

  • Summarily rejecting manuscripts undergoing active review or accepted prior to final publication.

  • Publishing formal Corrigenda or Expressions of Concern for published papers when technical clarifications are needed or complex institutional inquiries remain active.

  • Enacting formal Retractions for articles with compromised data, established falsification, severe plagiarism, or fraudulent peer-review histories.

  • Imposing a temporary or permanent submission ban restricting authors responsible for grave, intentional breaches from publishing in SENTRI.

  • Formally notifying institutional leadership, university integrity committees, or research funding agencies regarding confirmed scientific malpractice.

8. Handling Misconduct in Published Articles

When potential misconduct is substantiated subsequent to official publication, SENTRI executes definitive measures to maintain the purity of the public scholarly record:

  • Correction (Erratum/Corrigendum): Issued whenever an unintentional, minor mathematical, graphical, or typographical error occurs that does not invalidate the foundational findings or conclusions of the paper.

  • Expression of Concern: Published when substantial, credible integrity concerns arise that warrant community notification while comprehensive multi-agency investigations proceed toward definitive resolution.

  • Formal Retraction: Enacted in severe cases where findings are determined to be unreliable, fabricated, falsified, plagiarized, or ethically invalid. Retracted papers remain physically accessible within the digital archive to preserve the historical scientific record, permanently marked with watermarked retraction labels on the galley PDF, paired with a published Retraction Notice detailing the empirical grounds for withdrawal, and cross-referenced with the assigned Crossref DOI.

9. Responsibilities of Key Publishing Actors

  • Authors: Bear complete primary accountability for the authenticity, methodological accuracy, and ethical compliance of their research; they must archive original raw data for retrospective verification, formally declare conflicts of interest, ensure lawful authorship attribution, and actively cooperate with editorial inquiries.

  • Editors: Bound to evaluate allegations impartially, systematically recuse themselves from disputes where conflicts of interest exist, safeguard confidential documentation, ensure due process, and uphold COPE publication ethics benchmarks across all editorial interventions.

  • Reviewers: Obligated to alert the editorial office confidentially whenever they detect substantive similarities, uncredited texts, suspicious data anomalies, or ethical compromises during peer evaluation. Reviewers must never appropriate manuscript contents, initiate unauthorized private investigations, or breach review confidentiality.

10. Institutional Involvement

Because scientific journals lack legal subpoena powers and direct access to laboratory registries, SENTRI: Jurnal Riset Ilmiah reserves the right to formally escalate complex allegations to the primary research institutions, universities, or funding bodies overseeing the authors. The journal collaborates transparently with institutional committees, utilizing their formal findings to guide final editorial dispositions regarding the status of published or submitted works.

11. Appeals Mechanism

Authors or involved contributors wishing to dispute an editorial ruling or disciplinary action regarding misconduct allegations may file a formal, reasoned appeal directed to the Editor-in-Chief within 30 calendar days of receiving the determination. The appeal must present substantial new evidence, verified raw computational logs, or concrete proof of procedural flaws during the initial investigation. Appeals grounded merely on dissatisfaction with the final verdict without novel empirical documentation will be dismissed without reassessment. All substantiated appeals are evaluated by an independent review committee free from prior involvement in the initial case.

12. Commitment to Research Integrity

SENTRI: Jurnal Riset Ilmiah remains unyielding in its defense of scientific veracity, scholarly accountability, and transparent publication ethics. Through adherence to evidence-based inquiries, stringent due process, and immediate correction of defective literature, the journal ensures that its multidisciplinary contributions to the educational sciences and supporting disciplines continuously reflect trustworthy, verifiable academic scholarship.

  • Journal Name: SENTRI: Jurnal Riset Ilmiah

  • Publisher: LPPM Institut Pendidikan Nusantara Global

  • Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Sumardiana, M.Pd.

  • Identifiers: E-ISSN: 2963-1130 | DOI Prefix: 10.55681/sentri

  • Policy Purpose: To regulate the submission, investigation, and objective resolution of scientific research and publication misconduct allegations.