Publication Ethics

ALFI's publication ethics framework is informed by internationally recognized principles of research integrity, transparency, responsible authorship, ethical peer review, and trustworthy scholarly communication, including the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and internationally accepted principles of transparency and best practice in scholarly publishing.

These principles apply to all scholarly content considered or published by ALFI, including original research articles, review articles, invited contributions, special-issue articles, and other scholarly material evaluated through the journal's editorial process.

ALFI does not tolerate research or publication misconduct. Potential misconduct includes, but is not limited to, fabrication or falsification of data, plagiarism, inappropriate image manipulation, duplicate or redundant publication, undisclosed competing interests, authorship manipulation, citation manipulation, peer-review manipulation, misrepresentation of research approvals, fraudulent documentation, or deliberate interference with the integrity of the editorial process.

When concerns are raised, the journal will assess them impartially and may request explanations, original data, ethical approval records, supporting documentation, or other relevant evidence. Where appropriate, ALFI may communicate with authors' institutions, research-integrity offices, funders, or other competent bodies. Editorial action will be proportionate to the nature and seriousness of the concern.

Authors must ensure that submitted manuscripts are original and that words, ideas, data, figures, methods, or other materials originating from other sources are appropriately acknowledged and cited. Presenting another person's work, ideas, or intellectual contribution as one's own is unacceptable.

Substantial unattributed copying, inappropriate paraphrasing, excessive reuse of an author's previously published material, or other forms of misleading textual overlap may result in rejection, editorial investigation, correction, retraction, or other appropriate action. Similarity-detection software may be used as an editorial screening tool; however, editorial decisions are based on qualitative assessment of the nature and context of overlap rather than on a similarity percentage alone.

Manuscripts submitted to ALFI must not be simultaneously under consideration by another journal and must not substantially duplicate work already published elsewhere unless legitimate secondary publication is clearly justified, disclosed, appropriately referenced, and permitted under accepted scholarly publishing practices. Authors must disclose closely related manuscripts, conference papers, preprints, datasets, or previous publications whenever they are relevant to the assessment of originality or overlap.

Authorship must accurately reflect substantial scholarly contributions to the work. All listed authors must have made meaningful contributions, approved the submitted and final versions of the manuscript, and accepted accountability for the integrity of their contributions. Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet the journal's authorship criteria should be acknowledged appropriately rather than listed as authors.

Guest, gift, honorary, and ghost authorship are unacceptable. Changes to authorship after submission must be supported by a clear justification and agreement from all affected authors. ALFI may require a contributor statement using the CRediT taxonomy or another recognized contributorship framework.

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial, institutional, professional, academic, personal, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing their judgment. The existence of a competing interest does not automatically prevent publication or participation in the editorial process; however, relevant interests must be transparently declared and appropriately managed. Editors and reviewers must recuse themselves whenever impartial evaluation cannot reasonably be assured.

Editors, Editorial Board members, reviewers, or individuals involved in journal governance are not prohibited from submitting scholarly work to ALFI. However, they must have no involvement in reviewer selection, manuscript assessment, editorial discussion, or the publication decision concerning their own submission. Such manuscripts must be assigned to an independent editor who has no relevant conflict of interest and must undergo the same editorial screening and independent peer-review standards applied to all other submissions. Editorial position must never confer preferential treatment.

Research involving humans, animals, confidential information, vulnerable populations, biological materials, or other ethically sensitive activities must comply with applicable institutional, national, and disciplinary ethical requirements. Where ethical approval is required, authors must provide the name of the approving body and relevant approval information in the manuscript or upon editorial request.

Appropriate informed consent must be obtained where research involves identifiable human participants or identifiable personal information. Research involving animals must comply with applicable animal-welfare standards and must be designed to minimize unnecessary harm. Editors may request supporting ethical documentation whenever clarification is necessary.

Data, analyses, and results must be reported accurately and must not be fabricated, falsified, selectively altered, or presented in a misleading manner. Authors should retain appropriate research records and provide sufficient methodological information to permit critical scholarly evaluation and, where reasonably possible, replication or verification.

Where appropriate and legally and ethically permissible, authors are encouraged to make supporting data available through recognized repositories or provide a transparent data-availability statement. When data cannot be shared because of privacy, confidentiality, legal, contractual, ethical, or legitimate proprietary restrictions, those limitations should be clearly explained.

Digital images, figures, graphs, tables, datasets, and other research records must not be manipulated in ways that distort, obscure, fabricate, remove, or misrepresent relevant information. Legitimate adjustments made for clarity must not alter the scientific meaning of the underlying data. The journal may request original files, source data, or supporting documentation when concerns regarding authenticity or manipulation arise.

References must be selected because they are relevant to the scholarly content of the manuscript. Authors must not engage in excessive self-citation, coordinated citation exchange, citation cartels, or inclusion of irrelevant references intended to artificially influence citation metrics. Editors and reviewers must not require authors to add citations primarily for the purpose of increasing citations to themselves, ALFI, or associated publications.

Attempts to manipulate the peer-review process constitute serious publication misconduct. Prohibited practices include providing false reviewer identities or contact information, impersonating reviewers, submitting fraudulent reviews, concealing relevant relationships, interfering with reviewer selection, coercing reviewers or editors, or otherwise compromising the independence or authenticity of peer review. Confirmed manipulation may result in rejection, retraction, notification of relevant institutions, or other appropriate action.

Artificial intelligence systems, generative AI tools, large language models, and other automated technologies cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility or accountability for scholarly work.

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, citations, interpretations, and integrity of all submitted material. Material use of generative or automated tools in manuscript preparation, data analysis, image generation, coding, or other substantive scholarly activities must be disclosed transparently where relevant. The use of automated tools does not transfer responsibility away from the human authors.

Editors and reviewers must protect confidential information obtained through manuscript submission and peer review. Unpublished manuscripts, data, ideas, methods, correspondence, or other confidential material must not be disclosed or used for personal, professional, commercial, or competitive advantage. Personal data handled through the journal's editorial system must be used only for legitimate scholarly publishing purposes and in accordance with applicable privacy requirements.

Allegations concerning submitted or published work will be considered regardless of who raises them or whether concerns are communicated publicly or confidentially. Good-faith concerns will be assessed carefully, and the identity of individuals raising concerns will be protected to the extent reasonably possible while preserving fairness to all parties.

Depending on the nature and seriousness of the concern, editorial action may include requesting clarification or evidence, suspending editorial consideration, rejecting a manuscript, publishing a correction or expression of concern, retracting an article, notifying affected parties, or referring the matter to an institution or other competent authority. ALFI does not normally substitute for formal institutional investigations but may cooperate with legitimate research-integrity inquiries.

ALFI is committed to maintaining an accurate and trustworthy scholarly record. When a published article contains an error that materially affects interpretation, reliability, attribution, or the scholarly record, an appropriate correction may be issued. Retraction may be considered where findings are unreliable because of misconduct or major error, substantial redundancy or unethical research is identified, or other circumstances seriously undermine the integrity of the article.

An expression of concern may be issued when serious concerns exist but available evidence is inconclusive, an institutional investigation is pending, or a definitive editorial outcome cannot yet be reached. Corrections, retractions, and expressions of concern should be clearly identified, linked to the affected article, and preserved as part of the permanent scholarly record.

Constructive scholarly discussion after publication is welcomed. Readers, authors, reviewers, and other members of the scholarly community may communicate substantive concerns, comments, or evidence concerning published work to the editorial office. Where a matter has implications for the accuracy or integrity of the scholarly record, ALFI will assess the concern and take proportionate editorial action where warranted.

Authors and other stakeholders may submit reasoned complaints concerning editorial procedures, ethical matters, journal conduct, or publication decisions. Authors may appeal an editorial decision when they believe that a material error occurred during evaluation. Complaints and appeals should be supported by clear reasons and relevant evidence. Wherever feasible, the matter will be evaluated by an editor or responsible individual who was not directly involved in the disputed decision.

Editorial decisions are made independently by the journal's editorial leadership. The publisher, affiliated institution, sponsors, funders, advertisers, authors, or other external parties must not determine whether an individual manuscript is accepted or rejected. Institutional and publishing relationships may provide administrative, technical, financial, or publishing support but must not override the authority and responsibility of editors to make decisions based on scholarly and ethical considerations.

Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Industry (ALFI) is affiliated with Yayasan Kalidaka Cendikia Nusantara and formally published by WISE Pendidikan Indonesia. The publisher supports the journal's commitment to research integrity, transparent scholarly publishing, ethical editorial practice, and editorial independence.

Responsibility for implementing these publication ethics standards is shared by the journal's editorial leadership, reviewers, authors, publisher, and other participants in the scholarly communication process. ALFI may revise this policy when necessary to reflect developments in recognized standards of publication ethics, research integrity, and responsible scholarly publishing.