Statement

International Journal of English Language and Pedagogy (IJELP) is a peer-reviewed journal published by Universitas Terbuka that is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and takes all possible measures against publication malpractice. This statement clarifies the ethical behavior of all parties involved in the act of publishing an article in this journal, including the author, the principal editor, associate editor, editorial board, reviewer and publisher. This statement is based on COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Our responsibility is to publish original work of value to the intellectual community in the best possible form and to the highest possible standards. We expect similar standards from our reviewers and authors. Honesty, originality, and fair dealing on the part of authors, and fairness, objectivity, and confidentiality on the part of editors and reviewers are among the critical values that enable us to achieve our goal. IJELP is committed to following best practices on ethical matters, errors, and retractions, and to providing a legal review if necessary.

 

Allegation of Research Misconduct

'Research misconduct' means fabrication, falsification, citation manipulation, or plagiarism in producing, performing, or reviewing research and writing an article by authors, or in reporting research results. When authors are found to have been involved with research misconduct or other serious irregularities involving articles that have been published in scientific journals, editors have a responsibility to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the scientific record.

In cases of suspected misconduct, the Editors and Editorial Board will use the best practices of COPE to assist them in resolving the complaint and addressing the misconduct fairly. This will include an investigation of the allegation by the editors. A submitted manuscript that is found to contain such misconduct will be rejected. In cases where a published paper is found to contain such misconduct, a retraction can be published and will be linked to the original article.

The first step involves determining the validity of the allegation and assessing whether it is consistent with the definition of research misconduct. This initial step also involves determining whether the individuals alleging misconduct have relevant conflicts of interest.

If scientific misconduct or the presence of other substantial research irregularities is a possibility, the allegations are shared with the corresponding author, who, on behalf of all of the coauthors, is requested to provide a detailed response. After the response is received and evaluated, we may obtain additional review and involve experts (such as statistical reviewers). For cases in which it is unlikely that misconduct has occurred, clarifications, additional analyses, or both, published as letters to the editor and often including a correction notice and correction to the published article, are sufficient.

Institutions are expected to conduct an appropriate and thorough investigation of allegations of scientific misconduct. Ultimately, authors, journals, and institutions have an important obligation to ensure the accuracy of the scientific record. By responding appropriately to concerns about scientific misconduct and taking necessary actions based on the evaluation of these concerns, such as corrections, retractions with replacement, and retractions, MESI will continue to fulfill its responsibilities to ensure the validity and integrity of the scientific record, as described in the Plagiarism Policy and R-W-C Policy.

Complaints and Appeals

IJELP will have a clear procedure for handling complaints against the journal, editorial staff, editorial board, or publisher. The respected person will clarify the complaints related to the case. The scope of complaints includes anything related to the journal business process, i.e., editorial process, found citation manipulation, unfair editor/reviewer, peer-review manipulation, etc. The complaint cases will be processed according to COPE guidelines.

Ethical Oversight

If the research work involves chemicals, humans, animals, procedures, or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript to obey the ethical conduct of research using animals and human subjects. If required, the authors must provide legal and ethical clearance from the association or legal organisation.

If the research involves confidential data and business/marketing practices, the authors should clearly justify this matter, whether the data or information will be hidden securely or not.

To ensure best publication practices, MESI defines the duties and responsibilities of editors, authors, and reviewers, as described below.

Duties of Editor

Publication Decisions
The editors of MESI ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer review by at least two reviewers who are experts in the field. The principal editor is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published, based on the validation of the work in question; its importance to researchers and readers; the reviewers' comments; and such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair Play
Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study's validity, and clarity) and their relevance to the journal's scope, without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. The journal itself does not let governments or any other agencies outside of it determine decisions to edit and publish. The principal editor has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of its publication.

Confidentiality
The editors and any editorial staff may only disclose information about a submitted manuscript to the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest
The editors will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their research purposes without the author's explicit written consent. Editors will keep privileged information or ideas obtained while handling the manuscript confidential and will not use them for their personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers; instead, they will ask another member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript.

Management of unethical behaviour(s)
The editors, together with the publisher(s), should take rationally responsive measures when someone presents ethical complaints regarding a submitted manuscript or published article. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour will be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication. For this reason, IJELP has legal experts in the field of intellectual property rights on the Ethics Advisory Board.

Duties of Authors

Reporting Standards
Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and the results, followed by an objective discussion of the significance of their work. The manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Review articles should be accurate, objective, and comprehensive, while editorial 'opinion' or perspective pieces should be clearly identified as such. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data access and retention
Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, should be prepared to provide public access, and should, in any event, be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that the material has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism takes many forms, from 'passing off' another's paper as the author's own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another's paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. We will check each manuscript using a plagiarism checker () to ensure the originality of the article. Furthermore, each submitted article should be accompanied by a letter of statement from the author(s) stating that the article is free of plagiarism.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal or primary publication. Hence, authors should not submit for consideration a manuscript that has already been published in another journal. Submission of a manuscript concurrently to more than one journal is an unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgment of sources
Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others and should also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from the conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.

Authorship of the paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or to provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

Hazards and human or animal subjects
If the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them. The authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.
For human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans.  

Declaration of competing interests
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could be viewed as inappropriately influencing (bias) their work. All sources of financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article should be disclosed, as should the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated. The author must declare competing interests in the manuscript/paper template.

Image integrity
It is not acceptable to enhance, obscure, move, remove, or introduce a specific feature within an image. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or colour balance are acceptable if and only if they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original. Manipulating images for improved clarity is accepted, but manipulation for other purposes could be considered scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly. Authors should comply with any specific policy for graphical images applied by the relevant journal, e.g., providing the original images as supplementary material with the article or depositing these in a suitable repository.

 

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions, and through the editorial communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorised by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgment of sources
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that the authors have not cited. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts if they have conflicts of interest from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with any authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.