Publication Ethics
SEMPOA expects all parties involved in scholarly publication to act honestly, transparently, objectively, and responsibly.
The journal does not tolerate:
- plagiarism or inappropriate text reuse;
- fabrication or falsification of data or results;
- manipulation of mathematical, statistical, or computational results;
- fabricated or misleading references;
- duplicate or redundant publication;
- simultaneous submission to multiple journals;
- inappropriate authorship or undisclosed ghost authorship;
- citation manipulation;
- undisclosed conflicts of interest;
- unethical treatment of human research participants;
- misrepresentation of AI-generated or synthetic data as real observations;
- manipulation of the peer-review or editorial process.
1.1 Reporting Standards
Authors must present an accurate, complete, and objective account of the research performed. Data, mathematical derivations, algorithms, proofs, statistical analyses, computational experiments, and other research outputs must be reported honestly.
The manuscript should provide sufficient methodological information to permit readers to understand, evaluate, and where appropriate reproduce or verify the research.
1.2 Originality and Plagiarism
Manuscripts must represent original scholarly work. Material derived from previous publications must be appropriately quoted, paraphrased, acknowledged, and cited.
Plagiarism, including unattributed copying, inappropriate paraphrasing, image plagiarism, source-code plagiarism, and substantial reuse of an author's own previously published material without disclosure, is not acceptable.
1.3 Multiple and Concurrent Submissions
Authors must not submit substantially the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously.
Previously published work must not be submitted as an original article. Related publications arising from the same dataset, project, thesis, conference paper, or research programme must be transparently disclosed where relevant.
1.4 Accuracy of References
Authors are responsible for verifying every reference against the original publication. References must not be included solely because they were suggested by an automated system, AI tool, reviewer, or another source without verification.
Fabricated references, nonexistent articles, false DOI information, citation padding, coercive citation, and citation manipulation are unacceptable.
1.5 Authorship and Contributorship
Authorship must accurately reflect substantial intellectual contributions to the work.
All listed authors must:
- have made a substantial scholarly contribution;
- approve the submitted manuscript;
- agree to its submission to SEMPOA;
- accept responsibility for their contribution;
- cooperate in resolving questions concerning the integrity of the work.
Contributors who do not satisfy authorship requirements should be acknowledged where appropriate. Guest, honorary, gift, and ghost authorship are not permitted.
Authors are encouraged to describe their contributions using the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy.
1.6 Artificial Intelligence and Authorship
Artificial intelligence systems, generative AI services, large language models, algorithms, and software tools cannot be listed as authors.
Material use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies must be disclosed in accordance with the journal's Artificial Intelligence Ethics and Procedure policy. Human authors remain fully responsible for the final manuscript.
1.7 Funding Disclosure
Authors must disclose all relevant sources of financial support and, where applicable, identify grant numbers and the role of the funding organization in the research.
1.8 Conflicts of Interest
Authors must disclose financial, professional, institutional, collaborative, or personal relationships that could reasonably be perceived to influence the research or its interpretation.
If no conflict exists, authors should state: "The authors declare no conflict of interest."
1.9 Data and Research Materials
Authors should retain supporting research records and, where applicable, provide an appropriate Data Availability Statement.
Research data, code, computational scripts, instruments, questionnaires, mathematical models, or supplementary materials should be made available when appropriate and legally and ethically permissible.
1.10 Human Participants and Ethical Approval
Mathematics education research involving students, teachers, educators, or other human participants must comply with applicable institutional and national research-ethics requirements.
Where ethical review is required, authors should identify the approving ethics committee or institutional review body and provide approval information where available.
Informed consent must be obtained when required. Privacy, anonymity, confidentiality, and the rights of research participants must be appropriately protected.
1.11 Synthetic and Simulated Data
Synthetic, simulated, generated, or artificial data must be clearly identified as such and must not be presented as observations obtained from actual participants, institutions, experiments, or real-world datasets.
1.12 Significant Errors After Submission or Publication
If authors discover a significant error, omission, or inaccuracy in submitted or published work, they must promptly inform the journal and cooperate with the editorial team in issuing an appropriate correction, retraction, or other amendment to the scholarly record.
2.1 Editorial Independence
Editorial decisions must be based on scholarly merit, originality, mathematical or methodological rigor, ethical compliance, relevance to SEMPOA's scope, and peer-review evidence.
Commercial, institutional, personal, or other inappropriate interests must not determine whether a manuscript is accepted or rejected.
2.2 Fair and Non-Discriminatory Evaluation
Editors must evaluate manuscripts on their scholarly content without discrimination based on nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, institutional affiliation, political belief, disability, or other unrelated personal characteristics.
2.3 Initial Editorial Assessment
Editors are responsible for conducting or supervising initial screening for scope, basic scholarly quality, originality, policy compliance, research integrity, and ethical concerns.
2.4 Peer Review Management
Manuscripts proceeding to external review must be handled according to SEMPOA's published Single-Blind Peer Review policy.
Research articles that proceed to peer review are evaluated by at least two independent reviewers with appropriate subject expertise.
2.5 Final Editorial Decision
Reviewers provide expert recommendations. The final publication decision remains the responsibility of the Editor-in-Chief or designated handling editor.
2.6 Confidentiality
Editors must protect submitted manuscripts, reviewer reports, unpublished data, correspondence, and other confidential editorial information.
Unpublished material obtained through editorial responsibilities must not be used for an editor's own research or personal advantage without appropriate authorization.
2.7 Editorial Conflicts of Interest
Editors must recuse themselves from manuscripts for which they have a relevant personal, professional, institutional, collaborative, financial, or other conflict of interest.
Another qualified editor should manage such manuscripts independently.
2.8 Editorial Board Submissions
Manuscripts submitted by editors, editorial board members, reviewers, publisher representatives, or other individuals closely associated with SEMPOA are subject to the same scholarly and peer-review standards as other submissions. The submitting individual must not participate in reviewer selection or editorial decisions concerning their own work.
3.1 Confidentiality
Manuscripts received for review are confidential documents. Reviewers must not distribute, reproduce, publicly discuss, or disclose manuscript contents except as authorized by the editor.
3.2 Objective Evaluation
Reviews must be conducted objectively and constructively. Reviewer comments should be based on scholarly reasoning and should help editors evaluate the manuscript and authors improve their work.
Personal criticism, insulting language, discriminatory comments, and unsupported accusations are unacceptable.
3.3 Reviewer Expertise
Reviewers should accept an invitation only when they possess sufficient expertise to provide a meaningful assessment of the manuscript.
3.4 Identification of Scholarly Concerns
Reviewers should inform the editor if they identify possible plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated references, data irregularities, inappropriate image manipulation, mathematical inconsistencies, ethical concerns, or other potential misconduct.
Reviewers should report concerns to the editor rather than independently contacting the authors or conducting an investigation.
3.5 Conflicts of Interest
Reviewers must decline assignments when a competitive, collaborative, financial, institutional, personal, or other relationship could reasonably compromise the independence of the review.
Because SEMPOA applies single-blind peer review, reviewers are normally aware of author identities. They must therefore immediately disclose any relevant conflict identified from the author information.
3.6 Use of Unpublished Information
Reviewers must not use unpublished data, ideas, methods, mathematical results, or other information obtained through peer review for their own research, publication, or personal advantage.
3.7 Artificial Intelligence and Confidentiality
Reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts or unpublished research materials to public generative AI systems or other services that may retain, reproduce, or reuse submitted content.
Review reports must represent the reviewer's own scholarly evaluation and judgment.
3.8 Promptness
Reviewers should accept assignments only when they reasonably expect to complete them within the requested period. If a delay becomes unavoidable, the reviewer should inform the editorial office promptly.
CV. Media Digital Publikasi Indonesia, as the publisher of SEMPOA, is responsible for supporting the integrity, accessibility, continuity, and independence of the scholarly publication process.
The publisher should:
- respect the editorial independence of the journal;
- support transparent editorial and peer-review procedures;
- maintain journal infrastructure and online accessibility;
- protect published scholarly records;
- support appropriate corrections and retractions;
- ensure publication fees and licensing conditions are clearly disclosed;
- support investigations into credible allegations of publication misconduct;
- avoid commercial influence over individual editorial decisions.
SEMPOA takes credible allegations of research or publication misconduct seriously, regardless of whether they concern a manuscript under review or an article that has already been published.
Concerns may include:
- plagiarism;
- fabrication or falsification;
- data manipulation;
- duplicate publication;
- authorship manipulation;
- citation manipulation;
- peer-review manipulation;
- ethical violations;
- undisclosed competing interests;
- fabricated references or research evidence.
When credible concerns are received, the journal will conduct an initial assessment of the available evidence.
The corresponding author or other relevant parties may be asked to provide clarification, original data, calculations, ethics documents, authorship information, or other supporting materials.
Where appropriate, the journal may seek advice from relevant institutions, research-integrity offices, ethics committees, or other qualified bodies. The journal will seek to follow applicable COPE guidance when handling publication-ethics concerns.
Authors, reviewers, readers, and other interested parties may submit complaints concerning editorial procedures, publication ethics, peer review, published content, or journal conduct.
Authors may also appeal an editorial decision when they believe a significant factual, procedural, or scholarly error affected the decision.
Appeals should provide clear reasons and relevant supporting evidence. An appeal is not intended merely to express disagreement with an unfavorable editorial decision.
Where appropriate, complaints or appeals should be considered by an editor or responsible person who was not directly involved in the original matter.
SEMPOA is committed to maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record.
Where significant problems are identified after publication, the journal may publish an appropriate:
- correction;
- editorial notice;
- expression of concern;
- retraction;
- other amendment appropriate to the circumstances.
Post-publication action will be determined according to the nature, seriousness, and reliability of the evidence and in accordance with the journal's Correction and Retraction Policy.
Readers may communicate substantive concerns regarding published articles to the editorial office. Credible concerns regarding mathematical validity, methodology, data, interpretation, ethics, authorship, references, or other aspects of a published article will be considered by the editorial team and may lead to clarification or formal post-publication action where warranted.
Editors, reviewers, editorial staff, and other authorized parties must protect confidential information received during submission, peer review, ethical investigation, and publication. Personal information should be processed only for legitimate journal operations and handled in accordance with applicable privacy and data-protection requirements.
Publication ethics is a shared responsibility among authors, reviewers, editors, editorial board members, and the publisher.
SEMPOA reserves the right to investigate credible ethical concerns, request supporting documentation, suspend editorial processing, reject a manuscript, correct the scholarly record, retract an article, or take other proportionate action when necessary to protect the integrity of the journal and the scholarly literature.
