PUBLICATION ETHICS

The journals under the Program Pascasarjana Universitas Muhammadiyah adhere to international ethical standards to ensure responsible research conduct, protect human and animal participants, and maintain the credibility of the scientific record. These principles apply to authors, reviewers, editors, and affiliated institutions throughout the entire publication process.

A. Research Integrity & Ethical Standards

Research integrity refers to the ethical and professional conduct required to generate reliable and verifiable scientific knowledge. It demands that data, analyses, interpretations, and conclusions be produced and reported honestly, without fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, undeclared reuse, undisclosed duplicate submissions, manipulation of images or statistics, or concealment of results. Integrity also requires transparent methods, complete reporting, and respect for ethical approvals.

Definition and Scope of Research Misconduct

Research misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

  • fabrication (making up data or findings),
  • falsification (manipulating research procedures, data, images, or statistics),
  • plagiarism and self-plagiarism,
  • unethical image manipulation that alters interpretation,
  • intentional statistical misrepresentation or “p-hacking”,
  • ghost, honorary, gift, or paid authorship,
  • failure to obtain required ethical approval when human or animal subjects are involved,
  • concealment or selective omission of results, including negative findings,
  • misuse of AI tools to generate false data, fabricated citations, or text without verification.

Questionable Research Practices (QRPs)—such as selective reporting, undisclosed methodological changes, or inappropriate replication of studies without acknowledgement—are also condemned and may trigger investigation.

Editorial Duties and Investigation Process

Editors reserve the right to request raw data, original images, analysis scripts, ethics approvals, consent forms, laboratory records, or other documentation to verify the accuracy and integrity of a manuscript. Concerns raised during peer review, editorial checks, or by external parties will be handled following the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts and procedures. Investigations may involve:

  • communication with authors for clarification,
  • consultation with expert reviewers or statisticians,
  • contacting ethics committees or institutions to verify approvals,
  • temporary suspension of peer review or publication decisions.

If authors do not respond, or documentation does not resolve integrity concerns, editorial decisions may escalate.

Corrections, Retractions, and Sanctions

Where research integrity has been compromised, the journal may take one or more actions:

  • manuscript rejection prior to publication,
  • publication of correction, erratum, or expression of concern,
  • full or partial retraction, consistent with COPE guidelines,
  • notification to ethics committees, institutional leadership, or funders,
  • prohibition on future submissions from authors for a specified duration.

Retractions and corrections will remain publicly accessible and clearly linked to the original article to maintain transparency of the scholarly record.

Reproducibility and Transparency Expectations

To facilitate reproducibility:

  • methods must be described in full detail,
  • statistical analyses must follow best practices,
  • research instruments, datasets, codes, and protocols should be made available when ethically possible,
  • negative or null findings must not be concealed,
  • replication studies are welcome and encouraged if well designed.

Authors are expected to practice responsible open science. Reviewers and editors must evaluate research on the basis of methodological validity, not novelty alone.

B. Guidelines for Human Subjects Research

All research involving human participants must comply with the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical approval from an ethics committee or institutional review board (IRB) is mandatory before any recruitment or data collection begins, and the approval number must be stated within the manuscript. Researchers must obtain informed consent using language participants can understand, clearly communicating the study purpose, potential risks and benefits, compensation (if any), voluntary withdrawal rights, and data-handling procedures. Additional protections are required for children, pregnant women, older adults, individuals with limited autonomy, critically ill patients, and socioeconomically vulnerable groups.

Clinical Trial Registration Requirements

All interventional human studies—including randomized controlled trials, drug/device evaluations, behavioral interventions, surgical innovations, telehealth models, and AI-assisted diagnostic or therapeutic trials—must be prospectively registered before the first participant is enrolled. Trials must be registered in publicly accessible, not-for-profit registries recognized by the World Health Organization. Acceptable registries include:

WHO-primary national registries (e.g., CTRI–India, JPRN–Japan, CRIS–Korea, Thai Clinical Trials Registry) may also be accepted if officially recognized by WHO ICTRP. The registration number must appear in both the abstract and methods section. Studies lacking valid prospective registration or attempting retrospective registration may be rejected unless the Editor-in-Chief determines the justification is ethically valid and documented.

Mandatory Institutional Review Board Approval Documentation

For any study involving human participants, authors must upload a copy of their IRB or ethics approval letter during submission. Editors may contact the issuing ethics body to verify authenticity in cases of unclear or suspicious documentation. Ethical approval must match the study protocol described in the manuscript. If significant protocol modifications occur (e.g., change of study objectives, interventions, data-sharing scope, or risk levels), authors must obtain IRB re-approval and renewed consent if relevant.

Data-Sharing and Transparency Obligations for Clinical Trials

To promote transparency and reproducibility, clinical trial manuscripts must follow the following policies:

  1. Primary and secondary outcomes must match those registered in the clinical trial registry. Unregistered outcome switching must be disclosed and justified.
  2. Statistical analysis plans must follow the registered protocol, and deviations must be fully explained.
  3. Authors must indicate whether de-identified participant-level data will be shared. If data cannot be shared, authors must provide a valid ethical or legal justification (e.g., cultural considerations, privacy restrictions, sovereign data regulations).
  4. Upon editorial request, authors must provide study protocols, consent forms, and anonymized datasets or statistical coding for verification purposes.

Publication may be delayed or withdrawn if authors fail to provide required documentation, disclose protocol deviations, or respond to data-validation requests.

Confidentiality must be maintained through secure storage, anonymization, and restricted access to personal information. Personal data must never be shared beyond consent agreements or transferred to third parties without explicit written authorization.

C. Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Animals

Research involving animals must be scientifically justified, ethically reviewed, and conducted in accordance with international animal welfare standards. All studies must apply the 3Rs principles (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement) and comply with global regulations such as the EU Directive 2010/63/EU, the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) guidelines, and, where applicable, the AVMA Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals.

Mandatory Ethical Approval and Documentation

Before research activities begin, authors must obtain approval from an accredited animal ethics committee or institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC). Manuscripts must clearly state:

  • the ethics approval reference number,
  • the committee or institution granting approval, and
  • confirmation that the study followed approved protocols.

Manuscripts must include copies of approval documentation during submission. Editors may contact the issuing ethics committee for verification if the approval appears unclear, incomplete, fabricated, or inconsistent with the manuscript content. Studies conducted without prior approval, or where procedures deviate from the approved protocol without appropriate amendments, may be rejected or retracted.

Scientific Justification and Study Design Requirements

Authors must demonstrate that animal use is scientifically required and that no valid alternative (e.g., in vitro systems, simulations, organoids, computer modeling) can replace it. Experimental design must:

  • minimize the number of animals while ensuring valid statistical power,
  • justify the selected species, strain, sex, age, and sample size,
  • include humane endpoints that minimize pain, distress, or prolonged suffering,
  • describe welfare monitoring systems, housing standards, enrichment, and handling.

Deaths or adverse events must be reported transparently, including frequency and methods used to prevent or mitigate suffering.

Pain Management, Handling, and Humane Endpoints

Animals must receive appropriate anesthesia, analgesia, and humane care at all stages. Procedures must be performed only by trained personnel capable of monitoring physiological and behavioral signs of pain or distress. Humane endpoints—including early euthanasia for distress, weight loss, behavioral abnormalities, or morbidity—must be pre-defined. Studies must not:

  • induce severe or chronic pain without relief,
  • cause death as a sole experimental endpoint unless scientifically indispensable and ethically justified,
  • expose animals to unnecessary stress due to mismanagement, improper housing, or inadequate expertise.

Reporting Requirements and Transparency

Authors must follow the ARRIVE 2.0 Guidelines when reporting animal research. Manuscripts must transparently describe:

  • welfare-related procedures,
  • randomization and blinding (where relevant),
  • sex inclusion and justification for sex-based exclusion,
  • adverse events and deviations from protocol,
  • euthanasia method aligned with AVMA or equivalent international standards.

Editors may request raw data, welfare records, or protocol documentation to verify integrity. Failure to comply may result in rejection or retraction, and notification to oversight bodies.

D. Ethical Expectations for Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all submitted work reflects original ideas, accurate data, and honest reporting. Manuscripts must present findings transparently and without fabrication, falsification, inappropriate data manipulation, or selective reporting of results. All sources must be properly cited, and data, text, or visual reuse must be clearly attributed. Plagiarism—including self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, and salami-slicing (fragmenting results to publish multiple papers)—is strictly prohibited and monitored using similarity detection tools. Manipulation or suppression of findings to exaggerate impact, conceal negative results, or misrepresent limitations is considered scientific misconduct.

Authorship Criteria and Accountability

Authorship must be limited to individuals who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the conception, design, data collection, data analysis, interpretation, or critical writing and revision of the work. All listed authors must approve the final manuscript and share accountability for the integrity of the research and publication. Practices such as honorary, ghost, gift, and paid authorship are strictly forbidden. Individuals or organizations that provide funding, administrative help, translation, writing assistance, laboratory support, or data management without intellectual contribution must be recognized only in the acknowledgments. Authorship disputes will be handled using COPE guidelines, and editors may require statements clarifying each author’s contribution before publication.

Transparency in Funding, Conflicts of Interest, and Research Support

All authors must disclose any financial or non-financial support that could influence research outcomes or interpretation. This includes funding, materials, equipment, paid analytical services, affiliations, advisory roles, patents, consultancies, honoraria, and personal or institutional conflicts of interest. Undisclosed competing interests may lead to editorial rejection, publication of a correction notice, or retraction. If professional writing assistance or AI tools were used, they must be clearly acknowledged and cannot justify authorship.

Data Accuracy, Availability, and Reproducibility

Authors must ensure that datasets, statistical analyses, images, and laboratory protocols accurately represent the study’s findings. Data fabrication, concealment of adverse outcomes, or deletion of contradictory results is unacceptable. Upon reasonable editorial or peer-review requests, authors must supply underlying data, methodological details, statistical code, image files, or ethics approvals to verify authenticity. Where privacy or legal restrictions prevent sharing, authors must provide a valid justification.

Post-Publication Responsibilities

Scientific integrity continues after publication. If authors discover significant errors, ethical issues, omitted data, undeclared conflicts, or misinterpretations in their published work, they must immediately notify the journal and collaborate on appropriate actions, which may include issuing corrections, retractions, or editorial expressions of concern. Requests to retract or amend published content must follow documented ethical reasoning and cannot be used to avoid accountability for misconduct.

E. Ethical Image, Data, and Reporting Practices

Accurate and transparent data presentation is essential to the credibility and reproducibility of published research. Authors must ensure that all textual descriptions, tables, figures, images, and datasets truthfully represent the study without manipulation, concealment, or exaggeration. Reporting must be complete and sufficiently detailed to enable independent replication, verification, and critical appraisal.

Data Integrity, Availability, and Verification Requirements

All data presented in a manuscript must be authentic, traceable, and accessible for editorial verification. Selective exclusion of data, inflation of results, artificial harmonization of outcomes, or suppression of unfavorable findings is considered misconduct. When requested by editors or peer reviewers, authors must provide:

  • raw datasets (quantitative or qualitative),
  • laboratory notebooks or protocol documentation,
  • statistical code/scripts and software specifications,
  • image originals (e.g., uncropped Western blots, unedited micrographs),
  • research instruments, questionnaires, or coding frameworks.

If legal, cultural, or privacy limitations restrict data sharing, a valid written justification must be provided. Manuscripts that cannot substantiate data integrity may be rejected or retracted.

Ethical Image Preparation and Representation

Digital image manipulation is permitted only for clarity and must not alter scientific interpretation. Adjustments in contrast, brightness, or color balance must be applied uniformly and must not obscure, enhance, or remove features. The following practices are strictly prohibited:

  • selective removal or addition of features,
  • cropping that misrepresents context or scale,
  • splicing or merging images without clear demarcation,
  • duplication or reuse of an image to represent different experiments.

Authors must retain original, unprocessed image files and supply them if requested. Any edited image must be scientifically justified and explicitly described in the methods.

Statistical and Methodological Transparency

Statistical analyses must be appropriate for the study design and reported with enough detail to permit replication. Authors must:

  • specify statistical tests, software, version, and packages used,
  • report confidence intervals, effect sizes, and complete p-values (not “NS” or “p < .05” without specificity),
  • describe how missing data were handled,
  • justify sample size calculations or power analyses when applicable,
  • report all primary and secondary outcomes, including negative or null results.

Use of inappropriate tests, undisclosed post-hoc changes, or data dredging (“p-hacking”) is unethical. Misuse of statistics—including selective reporting or misrepresentation of uncertainties—can lead to rejection or retraction.

Supplementary Materials and Documentation Expectations

To support transparency, authors should submit supplementary documents where necessary, including:

  • detailed methodologies and stepwise protocols,
  • ethics application excerpts relating to procedure,
  • additional figures or non-essential data,
  • extended tables, codebooks, or transcriptions,
  • software algorithms or modeling files,
  • qualitative coding frameworks or thematic matrices.

Supplementary materials must be prepared with the same ethical rigor as the main manuscript. Failure to disclose relevant methodological steps or data that materially influence conclusions may be treated as misconduct.

Transparency in Reporting Guidelines Compliance

When applicable, manuscripts must explicitly state compliance with appropriate reporting standards (e.g., ARRIVE, CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, STARD, TRIPOD, CHEERS, CARE, SQUIRE) and provide completed checklists as supplementary files when required by the journal. Editors may return incomplete submissions for revision or reject non-compliant manuscripts.

F. Ethical Use of AI and Digital Tools

Artificial intelligence (AI) and other digital tools can support academic research, but they must be used responsibly and transparently. AI cannot replace human scholarly judgment, accountability, or authorship and must never be used to fabricate, manipulate, or distort scientific content. All researchers remain fully responsible for verifying the accuracy, originality, legal compliance, and ethical integrity of any outputs produced with AI assistance.

AI Authorship Prohibition and Accountability

AI systems (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, statistical or coding assistants) cannot meet internationally recognized authorship criteria because they:

  • cannot take accountability or provide consent,
  • cannot approve or revise manuscripts,
  • cannot disclose conflicts of interest,
  • cannot guarantee originality or accuracy.

Therefore, AI tools must not be listed as authors, and responsibility lies entirely with human contributors. Undeclared AI use may result in rejection, retraction, or institutional notification.

Permitted Use of AI and Required Disclosure

AI tools may be used for:

  • language editing or grammar support,
  • literature search assistance (not content generation),
  • coding assistance or script optimization,
  • visualization and non-interpretive graphical improvement,
  • qualitative coding support (if manually verified),
  • image cleaning that does not alter meaning (e.g., background noise reduction).

Where AI contributes to writing, coding, image handling, data cleaning, or analytical support, authors must declaratively state:

  • the tool’s name, version, and provider,
  • specific tasks performed,
  • verification steps performed by the authors.

A disclosure statement (e.g., in Methods or Acknowledgment) is required.

Prohibited Uses of AI in Research and Publication

Authors must not use AI to:

  • generate or alter data (numerical, laboratory, clinical, biological, or imaging),
  • fabricate citations, references, or clinical cases,
  • produce diagnosis/treatment recommendations without validation,
  • generate systematic review content or meta-analysis data extraction,
  • generate statistical results or epidemiological estimates,
  • create unverified coding, models, or algorithms,
  • produce artwork or figures that distort scientific meaning,
  • simulate lab data, patients, biometrics, or pharmacological results.

AI must not be used to bypass ethical review, produce fake participant responses, synthesize fake biological sequences, or invent case details.

AI in Clinical, Educational, and Decision-Making Contexts

In studies involving clinical decision support, diagnostic algorithms, or AI-assisted therapies, authors must:

  • obtain ethics approval for the algorithm and dataset, not only the clinical procedures,
  • disclose training data sources, bias mitigation procedures, validation protocols,
  • comply with patient privacy, consent, and data localization regulations,
  • avoid relying solely on proprietary black-box systems without critical review.

AI cannot replace professional judgment, clinical expertise, or ethical oversight. Models must not produce recommendations without human validation, risk assessment, and monitoring.

Verification Responsibility and Liability

Authors are fully responsible for:

  • fact-checking AI-generated text,
  • verifying code output and statistical accuracy,
  • validating images or visual outputs,
  • ensuring originality and copyright compliance (including AI-generated art),
  • screening for plagiarism and hallucinated citations.

If an AI-generated error, falsified detail, or copyright violation is discovered after publication, authors must cooperate with the journal to issue corrections or retractions. Failure to disclose AI use may result in academic sanctions, withdrawal of the manuscript, or institutional notification.

G. Participant Privacy and Confidentiality

Protection of participant identity, clinical information, and personal data is a fundamental ethical requirement. Any publication derived from human participants must preserve privacy, uphold dignity, and comply with ethical and legal standards for data protection. Authors, editors, reviewers, and journal staff must handle manuscripts and data responsibly, ensuring that identifiable information is never disclosed inappropriately or used beyond the conditions approved through ethics review and informed consent.

Confidentiality Principles and Legal Compliance Requirements

All research involving humans must observe internationally recognized standards on confidentiality and privacy protection, including:

  • ethical norms established by the Declaration of Helsinki
  • privacy and data protection consistent with frameworks such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation, EU) and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, U.S.)
  • protections governing clinical data, genetic data, biometrics, and geolocation information.

Where local regulatory frameworks exist, authors must comply with them alongside international norms. The consent process must explicitly inform participants about data storage methods, future data use, data sharing, and publication intentions.

Rules for Identifiable and Sensitive Data

The following information must be treated as identifiable and requires explicit written consent for publication:

  • photographs, videos, audio recordings, facial features
  • biometric identifiers (fingerprints, retinal scans, gait, voice signatures)
  • genetic profiles, DNA/RNA sequence information
  • hospital ID numbers, address, rare disease profiles
  • unique demographic combinations that reveal identity (e.g., age + small population + rare condition)

If anonymity cannot be fully guaranteed (as in rare diseases or unique case circumstances), this must be clearly explained during consent.

Case Reports, Clinical Images, and Consent Requirements

Case studies, clinical photographs, radiographs, fundoscopic images, dermatoscopic visuals, pathology slides, or surgical videos must not be published unless:

  • participants (or legal guardians) provide explicit and written consent for publication, not solely treatment consent,
  • consent must specify whether images may be published in open-access formats accessible worldwide,
  • identifiers are removed or masked wherever ethically appropriate.

Black bars over the eyes or partial pixelation are not sufficient anonymization if participants can still be recognized by context or features.

Data Storage, Access Control, and Usage Limitations

Personal data must be:

  • stored securely (encrypted or password-protected storage),
  • accessed only by authorized research personnel,
  • used solely for purposes approved in the ethics protocol and consent agreement.

Transfer of sensitive data to third parties, foreign institutions, cloud servers, or commercial systems must comply with jurisdictional regulations and may require additional consent or data localization measures.

Use of Data in Research Utilizing AI, Machine Learning, or Big Data

Studies involving AI systems, biometric algorithms, predictive analytics, or digital health tools must:

  • disclose data sources transparently and legally,
  • ensure that datasets do not include identifiable features without consent,
  • avoid using scraped, unconsented images or clinical data,
  • comply with restrictions on facial and biometric datasets,
  • implement de-identification and bias mitigation strategies.

AI cannot be used to reconstruct blurred faces, estimate identities, infer undisclosed diagnosis, or re-identify anonymized participants. Such attempts constitute misconduct.

Post-Publication Responsibilities and Legal Obligations

If privacy breaches or unauthorized disclosures are discovered after publication, authors must immediately notify the journal. Journals may:

  • publish corrections or retractions,
  • remove identifying images or files,
  • notify affected participants or institutions,
  • inform regulatory authorities if required by law.

Failure to report known breaches may result in sanctions, submission bans, or institutional notification.

H. Key Reporting Guidelines

To promote transparency and research quality, authors must comply with internationally accepted reporting guidelines relevant to their study design. A list of applicable reporting guidelines is available in the Authors’ Guidelines section.