PUBLICATION ETHICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

Bhumi: The Journal of Agrarian and Land Affairs

Bhumi: The Journal of Agrarian and Land Affairs raises land, agrarian and spatial planning issues. We recognize and are committed to promote ethical publication practices in Bhumi. The editors of Bhumi entrusted peer reviewer for its confidential and effective judgments of the manuscripts, and the readers place confidence in the peer-review process. The right decision in the editorial process will encourage an effective and efficient publishing system; this will benefit the scientific community/users, editors, writers, researchers, research sponsors, readers, and publishers widely.

DUTIES OF AUTHORS

Allegations of misconduct 

The authors of Bhumi journal submit their paper(s) as a result of scientific researches and should be presented appropriately, objectively and provide significant results. The presented data should be accurate. The paper should be written in detail, contain sufficient references, and able to be replicated or referred by other parties. Presenting inaccurate statements is unethical and unacceptable.   

Authorship and contributorship

The policy of authorship and contributorship in Bhumi is limited to parties that significantly contribute to the manuscript, on the concept, design, implementation, on interpretation of the results of the research. All parties with significant contribution should be mentioned as co-author(s), whereas other parties who contribute and/or participate on part of substance on the research project should be acknowledged as contributor. Author responsible to identify and determine the contribution of each parties involved in the research, and the degree of their contribution to the whole manuscript. All enlisted authors should be informed on the last version of the manuscript and agree to be published.     

Originality and plagiarism

All authors responsible for the originality of the manuscript. Citation should be written according to the required standard on Bhumi. It is not allowed to cite, duplicate, copy, or paraphrasing part or whole substance of other works without mentioning the reference, or to claimed works of other parties. All forms of plagiarism are considered as unethical and unacceptable. All submitted manuscript will be checked using anti-plagiarism software by the editors.   

Conflicts of interest

To avoid conflict of interest, all manuscripts with potential of conflict of interest, on source of funding or potential misinterpretation of the manuscript, should be mentioned by the authors. Editorial board has the right to decide on the manuscript if the following conditions were found.   

Data and reproducibility

Editor might ask for reference data to the authors during review process. In this condition, the author should provide the requested data.   

Ethical Supervision

All manuscripts published by Bhumi is under publication approval by the author. If the manuscript contains research involving the use of animals or human subjects, the authors should ensure that the manuscript is enclosed with the statement that all process and procedure were conducted according to relevant institutional law and guideline or based on the authorized institutional committee.      

Post-Publication Modification

When the author found basic and significant mistakes on the published paper, the author should inform journal editor or the publisher and together with the editor manage to withdraw or revised the paper. If the editor found the mistakes from other party (third party), the author should withdraw the paper through the editor, or revise the paper and giving evidences that the paper is valid and original.  

Intellectual Right and Redundant

The copyright of published article on Bhumi is on the author, and the article can be accessed online freely. The publisher has the authority to publish it on other channels considered necessary, hardcopy or softcopy. The author is prohibited to republish the same article in other publisher, in any form. Submitting the same article on many journals at the same time is also considered as unethical and unacceptable. Publication on Bhumi is free of charge, and all fees related to publication process are charged to the publisher. 

Journal Management

Bhumi journal is funded by National Budged of Indonesia, and the publisher do not charge any fees to the author. All process in Bhumi are managed professionally, and publication is managed using OJS system. Bhumi regularly conduct training on management, editorial and editorial staff to maintain management quality. Bhumi ensures that all process of publication are conducted independently. 

PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Reviewer Guidelines

The paper submitted to Bhumi undergo a rigorous peer-review to ensure that it is fit into the journal's scope and sufficient in term of academic quality and novelty. All reviewers are required to uphold this standard. Reviewer has responsibilities as a reviewer, as well as the ethical obligations to both the journal and the authors.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewer responsible to read the manuscript and evaluate its suitability and scientific quality for publication in Bhumi. The reviewer is expected to provide constructive, impartial, unambiguous, and honest feedback to the authors, with the purpose of encouraging them to improve their manuscript.

Bhumi journal aims to examine all submitted manuscripts—regardless will be accepted or should be improved. Reviews should be critical but not detrimental and must hold on accurate scientific communication.

Considerations before reviewing the manuscript

Reviewer should be certain that he/she has the necessary expertise and time to provide a critical evaluation of the manuscript. Reviewer should ensure that the manuscript matches with his/her expertise.  A review should be completed within two weeks. If reviewer does not think that he/she able to complete the review within given timeframe, reviewer should notice editor for additional time. Reviewer should have no conflict of interest with the reviewed manuscript. If there is, the reviewer should contact the editor and immediately recuse.

Reviewer ethics

Bhumi relies on the impartiality and discretion of the reviewers, and as a reviewer, he/she was entrusted with confidential material meant solely for evaluation.  As such, we expect the reviewer to handle all documents and correspondence related to the review process with appropriate level of care.

Do not use any of the information therein for the advancement of your own research or to discredit other party.

Do not discuss any aspect of the manuscript with third party. Ensure that the information therein and details of the review process remain confidential before, during, and after publication. Maintain the integrity of the blind review process. Under any circumstances, do not contact contact any of the authors to discuss their manuscript. Be fair, honest, and objective in your evaluation of the manuscript.

Declare a conflict of interest, and recuse yourself immediately if you believe your impartiality has been compromised.

Conducting the review

Bhumi review procedure uses an online submission and peer review system. When a reviewer is requested to review a paper submitted to Bhumi, they will have a journal account created for them, through which they will be able to read the abstract and decide on whether to agree to review it.

If the reviewer has been requested to review a paper, simply log into the reviewer account, read the provided abstract, and indicate whether the reviewer agree to review it. If the reviewer declines to review the manuscript, please include the reason why, and if possible, suggest an alternate reviewer from a similar field.

To ensure the integrity of the peer-review process, all further correspondence will be through this system, with the reviewer being given access to the full manuscript and provided with a review page to fill out and submit. The reviewer can also provide comments directly on the manuscript file, but be sure that all comments are made anonymously and focus on the content of the article, not its layout or formatting.

Principal criteria

A good review looks at both the overall quality of the manuscript and the accuracy and validity of its details. The former is informed by the latter. When evaluating a manuscript for Bhumi, look at the following aspects:

1. Scope. Is the manuscript within Bhumi scope? How interesting will the article be to the journal's readership?
2. Novelty of the research. Is the article sufficiently novel and interesting? Does it add new knowledge? How original is the research?
3. Appropriateness of the title. Does the title accurately represent the content?
4. Content quality. Does the article adhere to Bhumi standards? Is the research questions  important? Does the manuscript help to expand or further current research in its respective field?
5. Methodology. Is the description of the methodology informative, clear, and concise? Is the methodology of the research precisely and properly conducted? How appropriate is the approach or experimental design?
6. Significance of the results. Do the results have significant implications for agrarian and land studies and/or society?
7. Appropriateness of tables, figures, and/or supplemental material. Is every figure/table necessary and correctly described? Is the supplementary material appropriate for the content?
8. Completeness of the data. How complete are the data?
9. Relevance of the discussion. Is the discussion relevant to the results and the rest of the content? Have the authors appropriately discussed their results in the context of previous research?
10. Appropriateness of citations/references. Are all citations accounted for? Is there an appropriate amount of citations for the content (neither too few nor too many)?
11. Clarity of the content. Will Bhumi readership have trouble understanding the content?

Ethical considerations

In addition to the above criteria, also pay attention to whether the manuscript contains instances of plagiarism, improper referencing, re-publication, or fraud. Publication ethics is not limited to these four items. If reviewer believes the authors have attempted to mislead readers, infringed upon a copyright or patent, or might jeopardize the integrity of the journal in any other way, please contact the handling editor.

Good comments 

It's important to ensure that all comments are constructive and intended to improve the quality of the manuscript and help the authors to understand where improvements should be implemented.

Recommendations

Your final task as a reviewer is to recommend whether the manuscript will be a) accepted with minor revisions, b) accepted with major revisions, c) rejected. If the manuscript is rejected, the reviewer should giving explanation to the author regarding the justification of the reviewer. Each recommendation should be supported by the result of evaluation, supported by constructive criticism.