Conflict of Interest Policy

Efisiensi requires authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher to disclose and manage conflicts of interest so that readers can trust the integrity of the work and of the editorial process. This policy follows the COPE Core Practices.

1. What Is a Conflict of Interest?

A conflict of interest exists when a financial or non-financial interest could influence, or be seen to influence, a person's judgement about a manuscript. Examples:

  • Financial: employment, consultancy, grants, fees, or shares connected with the subject of the research.
  • Institutional: studying one's own organisation, or a close working relationship with the institution studied.
  • Personal: family ties, friendship, or rivalry with an author or reviewer.
  • Academic: a recent collaboration, supervision, or competing work.

2. Authors

2.1 What must be disclosed

  • All sources of funding and the role of the funder in the study.
  • Any relationship with an organisation that could gain or lose from the publication, including the authors' own workplace when it is the object of the study.
  • Any personal or academic relationship that could be relevant.

2.2 How to disclose

Every article includes a Conflict of Interest Statement, also entered in OJS at submission. If there is none, the authors write: “The authors declare no conflict of interest.” In the anonymised manuscript, the statement is written without identifying the authors.

3. Reviewers

  • Reviewers declare any conflict when invited and decline if they cannot review impartially, for example because they recognise the work of a colleague, student, recent co-author, or competitor.
  • Reviewers do not use unpublished information from a manuscript for their own purposes.
  • Reviewers who discover a conflict during the review inform the editor immediately.

4. Editors and Editorial Board Members

4.1 General duties

Editors do not handle manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest. The Editor-in-Chief assigns another editor, and the conflicted editor has no access to the review records.

4.2 Submissions by editors and board members

  • Members of the editorial team may submit to the journal, but their manuscripts are handled entirely by another editor and reviewed under the same double-blind process.
  • The handling editor and the decision are recorded in OJS so that independence can be verified.
  • The journal monitors the share of articles by its editorial team to keep the author base diverse.

5. Publisher

Payment of the article processing charge, partnership with ASPAPI, or institutional affiliation with Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta has no influence on editorial decisions. Decisions on fee waivers are made separately from editorial decisions.

6. Undisclosed Conflicts

If an undisclosed conflict comes to light, the journal asks the person concerned to explain. Depending on the case, the journal may re-review the manuscript, publish a correction to add the statement, or treat the case under the Research Misconduct policy.

Sources