Publication Ethics

Jurnal Multidisiplin Dehasen (MUDE)

e-ISSN: 2828-1799

Publication Ethics Statement

Jurnal Multidisiplin Dehasen (MUDE) is a peer-reviewed, open-access multidisciplinary scholarly journal published and managed within Universitas Dehasen Bengkulu. The journal is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, research integrity, editorial independence, transparency, accountability, and responsible scholarly communication.

This Publication Ethics statement defines the expected ethical conduct of all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, editors, editorial-board members, reviewers, the publisher, and other parties involved in journal management. The journal's ethical principles are informed by internationally recognised good practices in scholarly publishing, including guidance issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) .

Duties of the Publisher

Universitas Dehasen Bengkulu, as the institutional publisher responsible for MUDE, supports the editorial team in maintaining the integrity, continuity, accessibility, and sustainability of the journal.

• The publisher supports editorial independence and does not determine manuscript acceptance on the basis of financial, institutional, political, or personal interests.
• Advertising, sponsorship, publication charges, reprints, or other financial considerations must not influence peer review or editorial decisions.
• The publisher supports appropriate mechanisms for complaints, appeals, corrections, retractions, research-integrity investigations, archiving, and long-term access.
• The publisher and editorial team may cooperate with institutions, ethics committees, publishers, or other journals when necessary to resolve serious publication-integrity concerns.

Duties of Editors

Editorial Decisions

The Editor-in-Chief and responsible editors are accountable for deciding which submitted manuscripts are accepted, revised, or rejected. Decisions are based on the manuscript's relevance to the journal's scope, originality, methodological quality, scholarly contribution, research integrity, ethical compliance, peer-review evidence, and editorial standards.

Editors may consult reviewers, editorial-board members, or independent experts when appropriate. Editorial decisions may also be constrained by applicable legal requirements concerning copyright, privacy, defamation, research ethics, or other relevant matters.

Fair and Impartial Evaluation

Editors evaluate manuscripts on their scholarly content and relevance without inappropriate discrimination or preferential treatment. Academic position, institutional affiliation, nationality, personal relationship, financial status, or payment of publication charges must not determine acceptance.

Confidentiality

Editors and editorial staff must protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts. Information about a submission may be shared only with persons who reasonably need access for editorial processing, peer review, ethical evaluation, production, or investigation of a legitimate concern.

Conflicts of Interest

Editors must disclose relevant conflicts of interest and must not manage manuscripts in which their impartiality could reasonably be questioned. Such submissions should be reassigned to another qualified and independent editor.

Unpublished Material

Unpublished data, ideas, arguments, images, or other material contained in submitted manuscripts must not be used by editors for personal research, commercial advantage, or other purposes without appropriate authorisation.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists editors in evaluating the scholarly quality, originality, methodology, interpretation, relevance, and integrity of submitted manuscripts. Reviewer comments may also help authors improve their work.

Promptness

A reviewer who lacks the appropriate expertise or cannot complete the review within the requested period should promptly inform the editor and decline the assignment.

Confidentiality

Manuscripts received for review are confidential documents. Reviewers must not share, distribute, reproduce, upload, discuss, or otherwise disclose manuscript content except as authorised by the journal.

Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively, constructively, and professionally. Personal criticism, discriminatory comments, abusive language, or unsupported accusations are unacceptable. Reviewers should provide clear reasoning and evidence for their recommendations.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify significant relevant work that may have been overlooked and should notify editors of substantial similarity, duplication, plagiarism, citation manipulation, or other integrity concerns detected during review.

Reviewer Conflicts of Interest

Reviewers must decline assignments when financial, collaborative, personal, institutional, competitive, academic, or other relationships could compromise or reasonably appear to compromise impartiality.

Duties of Authors

Reporting Standards

Authors must present an accurate, honest, and sufficiently detailed account of the work performed. Research methods, data, analysis, results, limitations, and conclusions should be reported transparently enough to allow appropriate scholarly evaluation and, where applicable, replication or verification.

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure that submitted work is original. Words, data, ideas, images, figures, tables, or other material from previous sources must be appropriately quoted, cited, attributed, or used with permission where required. Plagiarism, misleading text recycling, or inappropriate reuse is unacceptable.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Submission

Authors must not submit substantially the same manuscript simultaneously to more than one journal. Duplicate or redundant publication without appropriate disclosure, citation, and justification is considered unethical.

Data Accuracy, Access, and Retention

Authors are responsible for the accuracy and integrity of research data. Editors may request supporting data, instruments, documentation, or other evidence when needed to evaluate the manuscript or investigate an integrity concern.

Where legally, ethically, and practically possible, authors are encouraged to make relevant research data accessible and to provide an appropriate Data Availability Statement. Confidentiality, informed consent, intellectual property, and legitimate access restrictions must be respected.

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made a genuine and substantial scholarly contribution and who accept responsibility for the work. Guest, honorary, gift, ghost, purchased, or otherwise manipulated authorship is not permitted. The corresponding author must ensure that all listed authors approve the submission and final manuscript.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Authors must appropriately acknowledge and cite scholarly work that materially influenced the research, methods, argument, analysis, or interpretation.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors must disclose financial, professional, personal, institutional, academic, or other interests that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research or its interpretation. If no relevant conflict exists, authors should provide an appropriate declaration.

Funding Disclosure

Authors should disclose all relevant funding sources and grant information. The role of funders in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or publication decisions should be stated where relevant.

Ethical Approval and Informed Consent

Studies involving human participants, animals, identifiable personal information, vulnerable populations, sensitive data, or other research requiring ethical oversight must comply with applicable ethical requirements. Authors should report ethics approval, institutional authorisation, and informed consent where relevant.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence systems cannot be listed as authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, citations, ethical compliance, and integrity of all manuscript content.

Authors must disclose substantive use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in accordance with the journal's Artificial Intelligence Policy.

Fundamental Errors in Published Work

If authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in a published article, they must promptly inform the journal and cooperate in issuing a correction, retraction, or other appropriate notice where necessary.

Research and Publication Misconduct

MUDE does not tolerate practices that compromise the integrity of research or scholarly publishing, including:

• fabrication or falsification of data, results, evidence, images, or research records;
• plagiarism or substantial unattributed reuse;
• duplicate or redundant publication;
• authorship manipulation;
• citation manipulation;
• peer-review manipulation or fabricated reviewer identities;
• fabricated references or false ethical statements;
• undisclosed relevant conflicts of interest;
• unethical research involving humans, animals, communities, or sensitive data; and
• paper-mill activity or other organised manipulation of the publication process.

Handling Ethical Concerns

Credible allegations of research or publication misconduct are assessed fairly and proportionately. The journal may request explanations and supporting evidence from authors, reviewers, or other relevant parties and may consult independent experts, editorial-board members, institutions, ethics committees, research-integrity offices, or other appropriate authorities.

Depending on the evidence and status of the article, appropriate actions may include rejection, additional review, correction, expression of concern, retraction, amendment of metadata, or another transparent editorial notice.

Corrections, Retractions, and the Scholarly Record

MUDE is committed to maintaining an accurate scholarly record. Published content should not be silently altered when a material issue is identified. Corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, and other notices should be clearly identified and linked to the affected article whenever appropriate.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers, readers, or other stakeholders may raise legitimate complaints or appeals concerning editorial handling, peer review, ethical matters, published content, or journal administration. Such matters are handled through the journal's Complaints & Appeals procedure and should be evaluated by an appropriately independent person when a conflict of interest exists.

Related Ethics and Integrity Policies

• Authorship & Contributorship
• Plagiarism Policy
• Research Misconduct
• Conflict of Interest
• Ethical Oversight
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy
• Corrections, Retractions & Withdrawal
• Complaints & Appeals