 |
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Conflicts of Interest
Jurnal Pendidikan dan Pembelajaran (DIAJAR) explains in this policy how it handles competing interests that could affect the reporting, the evaluation, or the publication of research. The aim is to keep the editorial process transparent and to protect the scholarly record. The terms "conflict of interest" and "competing interest" are used with the same meaning on this page.
1. What Is a Competing Interest
A competing interest is any relationship, circumstance, or activity that could influence, or could reasonably appear to influence, the way in which research is conducted, reported, reviewed, or edited. Disclosure is a protective step and is not an accusation. Declaring an interest does not mean that bias or misconduct has occurred, and it allows the editors and the readers to judge the work with full information.
2. Interests That Should Be Disclosed
Disclose the following interests when they are relevant to a manuscript or to an editorial or review assignment.
| Type of interest | Examples |
|---|---|
| Financial relationships | Employment, consultancy, honoraria, ownership of shares, patents, royalties, or other commercial benefits, for example from a publisher of learning materials, a tutoring service, a school, or a developer of educational software or a learning platform. |
| Funding and sponsorship | Research funding, paid expert work, or the involvement of a sponsor in the study, for example funding from a government office, a foundation, a company, or an educational institution. |
| Personal and professional relationships | Close personal, supervisory, collaborative, or professional relationships with authors, reviewers, or editors, such as a relationship between a supervisor and a student, between close colleagues, or between recent coauthors. |
| Interest in the subject of the study | Having designed, developed, or sold the program, the curriculum, the instrument, or the tool that is evaluated in the study, or studying one's own students, classes, or institution in a way that may affect the objectivity of the research. |
| Editorial and journal ties | Editorial appointments or other ties with the journal that may require that a manuscript is handled independently. |
Ordinary scholarly disagreement between researchers is not treated as a disqualifying conflict by itself.
3. Author Responsibilities
Every author must disclose any interest that is relevant to the submitted work. The corresponding author compiles one competing interests statement for the whole manuscript. If there are no interests to declare, the statement must say so, for example: The authors declare no competing interests.
The authors must also state their sources of funding. The funding statement names the sources of support, the funding organizations, and the grant numbers, and it says whether the funder had any role in the study, for example in its design, in the collection and analysis of data, or in the preparation of the manuscript. The funding statement does not replace the competing interests statement, and both are required.
The article template does not contain separate sections for these statements. Please write both statements in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript, as the final paragraphs of that section. Include the Acknowledgements section even if there is nothing else to acknowledge.
Examples:
No competing interests. The authors declare no competing interests.
Competing interest declared. The first author is employed by [name of the organization], which developed the learning platform that was evaluated in this study. The other authors declare no competing interests.
Funding. This study was funded by [name of the funder] under grant number [number]. The funder had no role in the design of the study, in the collection and analysis of the data, or in the preparation of the manuscript.
No competing interests. The authors declare no competing interests.
Competing interest declared. The first author is employed by [name of the organization], which developed the learning platform that was evaluated in this study. The other authors declare no competing interests.
Funding. This study was funded by [name of the funder] under grant number [number]. The funder had no role in the design of the study, in the collection and analysis of the data, or in the preparation of the manuscript.
4. Editors and Reviewers
4.1 Editors
Editors must disclose any relevant interest before they accept an assignment, and they must inform the journal promptly if an interest arises later. An editor whose impartiality may be compromised must not make decisions about that manuscript. This includes a manuscript that is submitted by an editor or by a member of the editorial board of the journal. Such a manuscript is handled by an editor who is not involved in it, and the author who is also an editor does not take part in its evaluation or in the decision.
4.2 Reviewers
Reviewers must disclose any relevant interest before they accept an invitation to review, and they must tell the journal promptly if an interest arises later. A reviewer who has a disqualifying conflict must decline the invitation or withdraw from the review. Examples are a close personal or supervisory relationship with an author, a recent collaboration with an author, or a competing interest in the subject of the manuscript. Please see also the Peer Review Process page.
When an editor or a reviewer declares a conflict, an editor who is not affected by it decides whether safeguards are sufficient or whether the assignment should be given to someone else.
5. Assessment and Late Disclosure
Each declared interest is assessed for its relevance and for its possible effect on the work or on the editorial process. Depending on the outcome, the journal may publish the disclosure together with the article, ask for an independent assessment, or replace the editor or the reviewer who is involved.
If a declaration is missing, incomplete, or inaccurate, or if an interest is disclosed after submission or after publication, the journal considers the circumstances in context. Material concerns are handled under the Publication Ethics, Allegations of Misconduct, and Correction and Retraction policies.
6. Scope of This Policy
This policy covers interests that are connected with research and with its assessment. Information about the fees that authors may be asked to pay and about the ownership and management of the journal is given on the Author Fees and Ownership and Management pages. Commercial considerations do not influence editorial decisions, as stated in the Publication Ethics policy.
Related Pages and Enquiries
The Manuscript Preparation page and the Author Guidelines explain the structure of the manuscript, and Authorship and Contributorship explains how contributions are declared. Questions about this policy, or about a specific disclosure, can be sent to jurnal.diajar@gmail.com.
