Publication Ethics

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement
Devotion: Jurnal Pengabdian Psikologi

1. Scope and Standards
Devotion: Jurnal Pengabdian Psikologi (e-ISSN 2830-5698) is a peer-reviewed open access journal published twice a year, in May and November, by the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Pancasila.

Publishing an article in a peer-reviewed journal is a building block in a coherent and respected network of knowledge, and a direct reflection of the quality of the work of its authors and of the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. Agreed standards of ethical conduct are therefore required of everyone involved: authors, editors, reviewers, the publisher, and the wider scholarly community.

This statement is based on the COPE Core Practices (Committee on Publication Ethics, https://publicationethics.org/core-practices). For research involving human participants, the journal also expects compliance with the Kode Etik Psikologi Indonesia (HIMPSI) and, where relevant, the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Manuscripts reporting research on human participants are expected to follow relevant reporting guidelines, such as JARS for quantitative and qualitative psychological research, CONSORT for randomized trials, and PRISMA for systematic reviews.

2. Journal Management and Editorial Independence
The Editor-in-Chief holds final responsibility for all editorial decisions, exercised directly or through delegation to a handling editor. Editorial decisions are based solely on the scholarly merit of the manuscript, its validity, originality, clarity, methodological soundness, and relevance to the journal's scope, and are made without interference from the publisher, the Faculty, any funder, or any commercial interest.

The Editorial Board is drawn from at least two different institutions. The journal publicly states its composition, editorial workflow, review model, publication schedule, and all fee arrangements on its website.

3. Editors' Responsibilities
Publication decisions. The editors decide which submitted manuscripts are published. Decisions are guided by the validation of the work and its importance to researchers and readers, by the policies of the Editorial Board, and by legal requirements concerning defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. Editors may consult other editors or reviewers in reaching a decision.

Fair play. Editors evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content at all times, without regard to the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, institutional affiliation, seniority, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality. Editors and editorial staff must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher. Submitted manuscripts must not be uploaded to any public generative AI service.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest. Unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the authors. Editors withdraw from handling any manuscript in which they have a competing interest, including manuscripts authored by themselves, by close collaborators within the past 3 years, by students they supervise, or by colleagues in the same department, and delegate the case to an independent editor who has no access to the identity of the handling chain.

Manuscripts by editors. Submissions from members of the Editorial Board are handled by an independent editor and are subject to the same review standards as any other submission. The journal monitors and keeps low the proportion of articles authored by its own editors and by authors affiliated with the publishing institution.

Vigilance. Editors take reasonable steps to identify and prevent publication malpractice, including plagiarism, image manipulation, data fabrication, citation manipulation, paper-mill activity, and undisclosed use of generative AI. Editors do not require authors to cite the journal in order to secure acceptance.

4. Reviewers' Responsibilities
Contribution to editorial decisions. Peer review helps the editor reach editorial decisions and, through editorial communication with the author, helps the author improve the manuscript.

Promptness. A reviewer who feels unqualified to review a manuscript, or who cannot complete the review within 14 calendar days of accepting the invitation, should notify the editor promptly and withdraw from the process. All periods stated in this section are counted in calendar days unless stated otherwise.

Confidentiality. Manuscripts received for review are confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor, must not be retained after review, and must not be uploaded, in whole or in part, to any generative AI tool or other third-party service, as this may breach confidentiality and the authors' rights.

Objectivity. Reviews are conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is unacceptable. Reviewers express their views clearly, with supporting arguments, and distinguish between essential revisions and optional suggestions.

Acknowledgment of sources. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that the authors have not cited, and should draw the editor's attention to any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript and other published work of which they have personal knowledge. Reviewers should not request citation of their own work unless it is substantively relevant.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and must not be used for personal advantage. Reviewers must decline manuscripts in which they have a competing interest arising from competitive, collaborative, supervisory, institutional, or personal relationships with any of the authors or their institutions.

5. Authors' Responsibilities
Reporting standards. Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data must be represented accurately. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

Originality and plagiarism. Authors must submit entirely original work. Where the work or words of others have been used, they must be appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism in any form — verbatim copying, paraphrasing without attribution, and appropriation of another's results or ideas — is unethical and unacceptable.

Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publication. Authors should not publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal. Simultaneous submission to more than one journal is unacceptable. Dividing a single study into several papers to increase publication count ("salami slicing") is not permitted; where a dataset has been used in another publication, this must be disclosed at submission, and the overlap explained.

Acknowledgment of sources. Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Excessive self-citation and citation added solely to inflate metrics are not acceptable.

Authorship. Authorship is limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. Devotion: Jurnal Pengabdian Psikologi applies the four ICMJE authorship criteria: substantial contribution to conception or design, or to acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; drafting or critically revising the work; final approval of the version to be published; and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work. All four criteria must be met.

Those who participated in substantive aspects of the project without meeting all four criteria should be named in the Acknowledgments with their permission. Authors are encouraged to specify individual contributions using the CRediT taxonomy.

Honorary, gift, and ghost authorship are forms of misconduct. Any change to the author list after submission — addition, removal, or reordering — requires written agreement from all authors, including the person being added or removed, and an explanation to the editor. Requests received after acceptance are granted only in exceptional circumstances.

Ethical oversight. Where the research involved human participants, authors must state in the Method section: the name of the ethics committee or institutional review board that approved the study and the approval number, or, where formal review was not available, the ethical framework that was followed and how it was applied; that informed consent was obtained from participants, and assent plus parental or guardian consent where participants were minors; how participant confidentiality and anonymity were protected; where deception was used, the justification and the debriefing procedure; and what safeguards applied where participants were in a vulnerable position or in a dependent relationship with the researcher.

Data access and retention. Authors are asked to provide raw data in connection with a manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to retain such data for at least 3 years after publication. Every article must include a Data Availability Statement stating where the data, materials, and analysis code can be obtained, or the ethical or legal reason why they cannot be shared. If a study was preregistered, cite the registration.

Hazards and human or animal subjects. If the work involves chemicals, procedures, or equipment with unusual hazards, the authors must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest. All authors must disclose in the manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation. All sources of financial support must be disclosed, with grant numbers where applicable.

Fundamental errors in published work. When authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their own published work, they are obliged to notify the editor promptly and to cooperate in retracting or correcting the paper.

6. Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence
Devotion: Jurnal Pengabdian Psikologi follows the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI tools.

Authors. Generative AI tools cannot be listed as an author or co-author. Authorship carries accountability, consent, and legal standing, none of which an AI system can hold. Authors may use AI tools for language editing, grammar, and formatting, and such assistive use does not require disclosure. Any use that generates or substantially restructures content — drafting text, generating or transforming figures, summarising literature, writing analysis code, or producing interpretation — must be disclosed in the Method section or the Acknowledgments, naming the tool, its version, the date of use, and the specific purpose. Authors remain fully responsible for the entire content of the manuscript, including any part produced with AI assistance, and are liable for any resulting breach of publication ethics. References to non-existent sources are treated as strong evidence of irresponsible use and may result in rejection or, after publication, retraction. AI-generated or AI-modified images are not accepted unless the generation process is itself the object of study.

Reviewers and editors. Reviewers and editors must not upload manuscripts, or any part of them, to generative AI tools, and must not delegate their evaluative judgment to such tools. Any use of AI in preparing a review must be disclosed to the editor.

7. Peer Review Process
Devotion: Jurnal Pengabdian Psikologi operates double-anonymous peer review. The editorial team first screens every submission for scope, adherence to author guidelines, and originality. Manuscripts that pass screening are sent to at least 2 independent reviewers with expertise in the subject area, drawn where possible from institutions other than that of the authors.

The typical review period is 4–8 weeks. Decisions are: accept, minor revision, major revision, resubmit for review, or reject. The editor decides after considering the reviewers' reports; if reports conflict substantially, the editor invites an additional reviewer.

The journal screens every submission for textual similarity using Turnitin. Manuscripts exceeding a similarity index of 20 percent, excluding the reference list and properly quoted material, are returned to the authors or rejected, depending on the nature of the overlap. A low similarity index does not by itself establish originality; the editor assesses the pattern and location of matches.

8. Allegations of Misconduct
Devotion: Jurnal Pengabdian Psikologi takes all allegations of misconduct seriously before and after publication, whether raised by reviewers, readers, institutions, or editors. Concerns may be sent to jurnaldevotion@univpancasila.ac.id and are treated confidentially. The journal protects the identity of the person raising the concern.

The journal follows the relevant COPE flowcharts (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/flowcharts). In outline: the editor evaluates the concern; where it appears substantiated, the corresponding author is invited to respond within 14 calendar days; where the response is inadequate, the matter is referred to the authors' institution; and the editorial outcome is decided once the institutional process concludes or, where it does not proceed, on the basis of the evidence available. Authors are given a fair opportunity to respond at every stage.

Sanctions, applied proportionately, may include rejection, retraction of published work, notification of the authors' institution and funder, and refusal of further submissions from the authors concerned for a stated period.

9. Complaints and Appeals
Authors who disagree with an editorial decision may appeal in writing to the Editor-in-Chief within 30 calendar days of the decision letter, setting out the specific points of disagreement and any supporting evidence. Appeals are considered by an editor who was not involved in the original decision. The appeal outcome is final.

Complaints about editorial process, conduct of staff, or the journal's policies should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief, and, where the complaint concerns the Editor-in-Chief, to the Dean of the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Pancasila. Complaints are acknowledged within 7 working days.

10. Post-Publication Discussion, Corrections, and Retractions
Devotion: Jurnal Pengabdian Psikologi welcomes post-publication discussion through letters to the editor and commentaries, which are forwarded to the original authors for response.

The version of record is permanent. Where change is required, the journal issues one of the following, each citing and linked to the original article, and each carrying its own DOI:

Correction (erratum/corrigendum) for errors that affect part of the article but not its findings or conclusions. Errors introduced by the journal are labeled erratum; those originating with the authors are labeled corrigendum.

Retraction for unreliable findings, whether through misconduct or honest error; for plagiarism, redundant publication, unethical research, or undisclosed major conflicts of interest. The article remains online, clearly watermarked as retracted, with a retraction notice stating the reason and who is retracting it. Retraction is applied in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines.

Expression of concern where a substantiated concern exists but the investigation is inconclusive or unresolved.

Articles are not removed from the journal website once published, except where legally required or where they present a serious risk; in such cases the metadata and a notice remain.

11. Intellectual Property
Copyright and licensing terms are set out in the journal's separate Copyright and Licensing Policy. Authors retain copyright; articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license; and the journal claims no exclusive publishing rights.

Preprints posted before or during submission are not treated as prior publication. Authors should cite the preprint in the submitted manuscript and, once published, update the preprint record with the DOI of the published version.

12. Archiving, Preservation, and Indexing
The journal maintains a digital preservation arrangement through KPIN so that content remains accessible if the journal ceases to publish. Crossref assigns a DOI to every article and deposits article metadata, which is made available for harvesting via OAI-PMH. Devotion: Jurnal Pengabdian Psikologi is indexed in Garuda, Crossref, and Dimensions.

13. Fees and Revenue
Devotion: Jurnal Pengabdian Psikologi does not charge any article processing charge or submission fee. There are no fees at any stage of the submission or publication process. This policy does not affect editorial decisions.

The journal receives no revenue from advertising or from direct marketing, and no commercial arrangement is permitted to influence editorial decisions.

14. Publisher's Responsibilities
The Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Pancasila, as publisher, supports the journal's editorial independence, provides the resources necessary for a rigorous editorial process, and will work with the editors and other publishers and scholarly organizations to set best practices and address cases of research and publication misconduct.

Approved by the Editorial Board on 20 August 2026. Effective from Volume 5, Nomor 2, November 2026. This statement is reviewed at least every two years.