Policy Statement

Jurnal Agrotropika, published by the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Lampung, is committed to maintaining the integrity, accuracy, and reliability of the scientific record. Every submitted manuscript is prepared with due diligence by the authors and undergoes a rigorous peer-review process conducted by editors and reviewers. Nevertheless, for academic and ethical purposes, it is possible that a published article may require retraction, withdrawal, correction, or replacement.

Such actions are taken only under exceptional circumstances and follow strict criteria in order to preserve trust in the journal’s electronic archive. This policy reflects the journal’s dedication to safeguarding the quality, completeness, and credibility of scholarly publications for researchers and librarians.

Content Integrity and Maintenance

Jurnal Agrotropika attaches the highest importance to the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record. The CrossMark logo is applied to published articles as a commitment to maintaining content updates and ensuring readers are informed of the current status of each article. CrossMark provides transparency regarding any corrections, updates, or retractions that may occur after publication.

Article Retraction

Retraction of an article is undertaken when the validity of the published work is seriously compromised. Retractions may occur under the following conditions:

1. Significant scientific errors are discovered that invalidate the article’s conclusions, whether due to misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or unintentional mistakes (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error).
2. The findings have been published previously without proper cross-reference, permission, or justification.
3. Ethical violations are identified, including plagiarism, fraudulent authorship, or unauthorized use of data.

The retraction process adheres to the COPE Retraction Guidelines and includes the following steps:

• The potential retraction case is reported to the Editor.
• The Editor follows the COPE flowcharts, including seeking clarification from the author(s).
• The case is referred to the Ethics Advisory Board for review and recommendations to ensure consistency with publishing best practices.
• The final decision is communicated to the author(s) and, when relevant, to the author’s institution.
• A retraction statement is published online and in the subsequent journal issue.

It should be noted that copyright ownership by the author(s) does not grant an automatic right to withdraw an article once published. Preserving the scientific record remains of utmost importance.

Article Withdrawal

Withdrawal of manuscripts by authors is strongly discouraged, as it constitutes a waste of editorial and reviewer resources. Specific provisions for withdrawal are as follows:

• Withdrawal during the review process will incur a penalty of IDR 200,000 or USD 15 per manuscript.
• Withdrawal after acceptance for publication will incur a penalty of IDR 400,000 or USD 20 per manuscript.
• Manuscripts already published as Articles in Press but later found to breach ethical standards (e.g., multiple submissions, fraudulent authorship, plagiarism, or data manipulation) will be withdrawn. In such cases, the article’s HTML and PDF files are replaced with a withdrawal notice, and the author will be fined IDR 500,000 per manuscript.
• Authors refusing to pay the penalty will be blacklisted from submitting to Jurnal Agrotropika for five (5) years.
• Withdrawal requests must be accompanied by an official letter signed by the corresponding author and endorsed by the Head of the author’s Department/Faculty.

Article Correction

Corrections are issued when an article contains errors that do not invalidate the overall findings but may affect clarity, authorship accuracy, or minor data presentation. Corrections may include:

1. Erratum (Publisher’s Correction): issued when significant errors are introduced by the publisher.
2. Corrigendum (Author’s Correction): issued when significant errors are introduced by the author(s).
3. Addendum: issued to provide additional information that clarifies, expands, or updates the original work.

The decision to publish a correction rests with the Editor, often in consultation with reviewers or members of the Editorial Board.

Article Removal

In rare cases, a published article may be permanently removed from the journal’s website. Removal may occur when:

• The article is defamatory or infringes upon legal rights.
• The article is subject to a court order.
• The article poses a serious and direct risk to public health.

In such cases, metadata (title and author information) will be retained, but the text will be replaced with a notice indicating that the article has been removed for legal or ethical reasons.

Article Replacement

If an article is found to pose a serious public health risk, the authors may be allowed to retract the original version and replace it with a corrected one. In such cases, the retraction notice will include a link to the revised article and its publication history.

 

Editorial Expressions of Concern and Editor’s Notes

Editor's Note: An Editor's Note is a notification alerting readers if the journal has initiated an inquiry in response to concerns raised about a published article. It is an online-only update, made only to the HTML version of record of the published article. It is not indexed.

Editorial Expression of Concern: An Editorial Expression of Concern is a statement from the editors alerting readers to serious concerns affecting the integrity of the published paper. EEoCs are published online and are bidirectionally linked to the published paper. They receive a DOI and are indexed in major scholarly databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. EEoCs may be an interim measure or may be final.

Publishing an Editor’s Note or EEoC is recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as a means of keeping readers updated while a potentially lengthy research integrity investigation is underway. Editor’s Notes and EEoCs are typically but not always superseded by publishing another amendment, such as a correction or retraction, once the investigation is complete.