Review Process Policy

SENTRI: Jurnal Riset Ilmiah

1. Purpose

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 maintaining the quality, originality, scientific relevance, and ethical integrity of published scholarly literature. The journal enforces a rigorous, structured peer-review workflow to ensure that submitted manuscripts meet international academic benchmarks and contribute meaningfully to the advancement of educational sciences and allied interdisciplinary fields (including vocational education, economic education, educational technology, sports education, linguistics, and educational governance). This evaluation process is structured to guarantee objective editorial decisions, substantive developmental feedback, robust integrity safeguards, and continuous qualitative improvement in academic publishing.

2. Initial Editorial Screening (Desk Evaluation)

All manuscripts submitted through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) portal undergo an initial desk screening conducted by the Editor-in-Chief or assigned Section Editors prior to external peer review. During this preliminary stage, the editorial desk assesses whether the manuscript strictly aligns with the journal's focus and scope, complies with structural author guidelines and referencing styles, demonstrates sufficient conceptual novelty, presents a well-articulated theoretical framework, and includes all necessary ethical declarations and metadata. Furthermore, an initial similarity assessment is conducted using verified anti-plagiarism screening software; manuscripts exhibiting unacceptable similarity indices, missing core empirical sections, or falling outside the multidisciplinary educational remit are returned for mandatory pre-review revision or formally rejected without external dispatch.

3. Peer Review Model

Manuscripts satisfying initial editorial checks are assigned to independent external peer reviewers. SENTRI operates under a strict Double-Blind Peer Review model, wherein the identities of the authors and the reviewers remain completely concealed from one another throughout the evaluation cycle. Submitting authors must ensure that all identifying institutional affiliations, author acknowledgments, and self-identifying document properties are removed from the review file. Each manuscript is systematically assigned to a minimum of 2 (two) qualified external peer reviewers holding relevant doctoral degrees, verified publication records, and specialized competence in the targeted subdiscipline, with additional reviewers recruited whenever substantive analytical divergences emerge.

4. Reviewer Selection and Diversity

Reviewers are selected based upon documented disciplinary expertise, research competence, academic reputation, and their capacity to provide balanced, timely, and impartial evaluations. The editorial team systematically avoids potential conflicts of interest by excluding reviewers who share recent research collaborations, institutional affiliations, or supervisory/advisory connections with the submitting authors. To safeguard review independence and cross-institutional objectivity, reviewer recruitment prioritizes geographical and institutional diversity across national and international academic consortia.

5. Review Criteria

Peer reviewers evaluate submissions across eight foundational academic criteria:

  1. Thematic Relevance: Direct alignment with the interdisciplinary educational mission and thematic scope of SENTRI.

  2. Originality and Novelty: Clear articulation of research gaps, innovative hypotheses, and verifiable contributions to current educational theory or practice.

  3. Scholarly Literature Review: Rigorous engagement with contemporary, authoritative literature, including primary sources from indexed journals.

  4. Methodological Soundness: Appropriateness, replicability, and ethical validity of the research design, psychometric instruments, empirical sampling, and analytical procedures.

  5. Results and Empirical Discussion: Coherent presentation of empirical findings paired with critical, insightful discussion contrasting outcomes against established paradigms.

  6. Conclusions and Practical Implications: Logical alignment between data and conclusions, explicitly delineating actionable implications for educational practice, pedagogy, or policymaking.

  7. Clarity of Presentation: Academic writing proficiency, logical structural development, grammatical accuracy, and standard tabular and graphical organization.

  8. Research and Publication Ethics: Compliance with informed consent, participant protection, transparent data handling, fair attribution, and absence of redundant text or manipulated data.

6. Editorial Decisions

Following the receipt of peer evaluations, the handling editor renders an editorial determination grounded in the reviewers' substantive critiques, the overall scientific quality of the manuscript, and the journal's publishing standards. The formal determination falls into one of four categories:

  • Accept Submission: The manuscript meets all scientific standards and is approved for publication without substantive revision, moving directly to copyediting and layout proofing.

  • Revisions Required (Minor Revision): The submission is accepted in principle, subject to specific textual, typographical, or minor analytical amendments completed within 7 to 14 calendar days.

  • Resubmit for Review (Major Revision): Substantial theoretical, empirical, or methodological enhancements are required. The revised version must be resubmitted within 14 to 30 calendar days, accompanied by a comprehensive rejoinder, and will undergo a second round of external peer review.

  • Decline Submission (Reject): The manuscript suffers from fatal methodological flaws, lacks demonstrable originality, fails to address fundamental review queries, or falls fundamentally short of scholarly quality standards.

The Editor-in-Chief retains final authority over all publication determinations. Reviewer recommendations serve as expert counsel to inform editorial decisions but are not mechanically binding upon the editorial board.

7. Revision and Author Response Procedures

When revisions are required, the corresponding author must submit the revised manuscript within the stipulated timeframe via the OJS portal. The submission must include a highlighted/tracked-changes manuscript version alongside an itemized, point-by-point Response to Reviewers Matrix detailing how each critique was resolved, or offering a robust, academically grounded rationale for any recommendation not adopted. Failure to return requested revisions within the designated window without an approved editorial extension results in the manuscript being treated as officially withdrawn.

8. Confidentiality and Data Safeguards

All submitted manuscripts, supplementary datasets, peer reviews, and editorial correspondence are legally and ethically privileged, confidential materials. Editors, reviewers, and publishing staff are prohibited from circulating, disclosing, or leveraging unpublished findings, hypotheses, or analytical models for personal, professional, or competitive advantage. Reviewers are strictly forbidden from sharing manuscript access with third parties or inputting confidential manuscript text into external generative artificial intelligence platforms or unverified third-party cloud tools that compromise manuscript confidentiality and intellectual property rights.

9. Ethical Obligations of Peer Reviewers

Reviewers invited by SENTRI are expected to:

  • Deliver objective, rigorous, constructive, and evidence-grounded appraisals free from personal or ideological bias.

  • Highlight relevant, published scientific work that the authors have overlooked or failed to cite.

  • Immediately alert the handling editor regarding potential plagiarism, data falsification, duplicate publication, or image manipulation detected during evaluation.

  • Promptly declare any emerging conflicts of interest (financial, personal, or institutional) and decline the assignment when neutrality is compromised.

  • Decline invitations promptly if their current workload prevents the delivery of a comprehensive review within the agreed evaluation schedule (typically 14 to 21 days).

  • Refrain from requesting coercive citations to their own research merely to inflate citation metrics.

10. Editorial Independence and Anti-Bias Safeguards

Editorial determinations are founded exclusively on scholarly quality, methodological rigor, intellectual contribution, and research integrity. Editorial operations remain completely insulated from commercial, political, or institutional pressures. When handling editors maintain personal, professional, or institutional affiliations with an author, the manuscript is reassigned entirely to an independent guest or section editor. Manuscripts submitted by members of the editorial board or the Editor-in-Chief are managed through isolated, arm's-length procedures, fully excluding the authoring editor from reviewer recruitment, evaluation metrics, and final decision-making. No manuscript receives favorable or detrimental handling based on the author's nationality, gender, institutional prestige, or academic seniority.

11. Review Timelines and Publication Cadence

SENTRI enforces an organized editorial timeline to ensure prompt scientific dissemination while protecting rigorous review quality. Desk screening is completed within 3 to 7 business days following submission; external double-blind reviews are conducted within an average target of 14 to 21 calendar days per round. Because SENTRI publishes 12 regular issues annually on a strict monthly cadence—releasing all finalized papers in complete issue bundles on the final calendar day of each month—authors are advised to submit manuscripts at least 4 to 8 weeks in advance of their prospective target publication month to allow adequate time for iterative revisions, copyediting, Crossref DOI registration, and galley proofing.

12. Appeals and Grievance Mechanism

Authors who reasonably conclude that an editorial rejection was influenced by demonstrable factual inaccuracies, procedural discrepancies, or identifiable reviewer bias may submit a formal written appeal to the Editor-in-Chief within 14 calendar days of the formal notification. The appeal must present a detailed, point-by-point factual refutation backed by empirical documentation, published literature, or raw analytical verification. General dissatisfaction with academic critiques does not constitute valid grounds for reconsideration. The Editor-in-Chief will appoint an independent arbiter from the senior editorial board to assess the merits of the appeal; the subsequent determination rendered following this independent re-examination is final.

13. Final Statement

SENTRI: Jurnal Riset Ilmiah remains dedicated to executing an ethical, transparent, and academically developmental peer-review process. By upholding strict double-blind standards, objective editorial criteria, constructive scholarly discourse, and transparent accountability, the journal guarantees that its published literature contributes reliably to the progress of educational sciences and global academic scholarship.

  • Journal Name: SENTRI: Jurnal Riset Ilmiah

  • Publisher: LPPM Institut Pendidikan Nusantara Global

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

  • Peer-Review Model: Double-Blind Peer Review (minimum 2 external reviewers per manuscript)

  • Publication Frequency: Monthly (12 issues per year, released on the final day of each month)

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

  • Policy Purpose: To regulate the initial screening, double-blind peer review, editorial adjudication, and ethical governance of submitted manuscripts.