Correction and Retraction

General Policy

It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor of a journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision, the editor is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact, and unaltered as far as possible. However, very occasionally, circumstances may arise in which a published article must later be corrected, retracted, or even removed. Such actions are not undertaken lightly and only occur under exceptional circumstances.

This policy takes into account current best practices in the scholarly and library communities, including the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The article withdrawal policies of Unesa Journal of Chemistry (UJC), including manuscript withdrawal, article retraction, article removal, and article replacement, are adapted from the Elsevier Article Withdrawal Policy. As standards evolve, UJC will revisit this policy and welcomes input from the scholarly and library communities.

Article Correction

A correction (erratum or corrigendum) is published when a small part of an otherwise reliable article is found to contain an error that affects the scientific record, such as an error in data, a figure, a table, the author list, or an affiliation. The correction notice is published in a subsequent issue of UJC and is linked to the original article. Published articles are not changed silently; minor non-substantive errors (e.g., typographical errors or broken links) may be corrected without a formal correction notice.

Article Retraction

Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, false claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like, are forbidden in UJC. Occasionally, a retraction will also be used to correct serious errors in submission or publication. The retraction of an article by its authors or by the editor on the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by several library and scholarly bodies, and these best practices are adopted for article retraction by UJC.

The editor will thoroughly investigate any alleged infringement of professional ethical codes. The UJC Editorial Board will notify the author(s) of the alleged violation, together with its evidence, and offer the options available to the author(s). If the editor is unable to contact the author(s) within the prescribed period, the editor will discuss the matter with the other editors and the Editorial Advisory Board.

The standards for article retraction in UJC are as follows:

  1. A statement (letter) of article retraction, entitled “Retracted: (article title)”, will be issued by the UJC Editorial Board in two languages (Indonesian and English).
  2. The retraction letter (along with any evidence, comments, criticism, or requests from members of the scientific community) is placed before the article, using the same page number as the first page of the article with the additional code “ed-1” for the first page of the letter, and so on (e.g., 56-ed-1, 56-ed-2).
  3. The original version of the article is given a “Retracted” watermark or stamp and placed after the letter. This new PDF file replaces the original PDF file of the article.
  4. The abstract of the article on the UJC website is replaced with a statement that the article has been retracted because it violates the code of ethics and/or UJC policy, and the keywords of the article are removed.
  5. The retraction letter is also published in the UJC issue in which it is issued, as part of the Comments and Criticism section.

Article Removal: Legal Limitations

In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is defamatory or infringes others’ legal rights, where the article is (or the editor has good reason to expect it will be) the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In these circumstances, while the metadata (title and authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a page indicating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.

Article Replacement

In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In these circumstances, the procedures for retraction will be followed, with the difference that the retraction notice will include a link to the corrected, re-published article and a history of the document.

Withdrawal of Manuscripts

Author(s) are not allowed to withdraw a manuscript that has been submitted to UJC, because withdrawal wastes the resources, time, and effort that the editors and reviewers have spent in processing the manuscript. It is also highly unethical to withdraw a submitted manuscript because another journal has accepted it. Sanctions for manuscript withdrawal are as follows:

  • Withdrawal during the review process: a ban on submitting manuscripts to UJC for a maximum of 1 year.
  • Withdrawal after the manuscript has been accepted for publication (which is extremely unethical): a ban on submitting manuscripts to UJC for a maximum of 3 years.
  • Failure to submit a revision by the deadline set by the editor without any confirmation to the editor: this is considered a withdrawal and may result in a ban on submitting manuscripts to UJC for a maximum of 2 years.
  • More than one manuscript withdrawal: the author(s) may be banned permanently. The ban may also be applied to the author’s institution.

The UJC Editorial Board may announce such bans publicly on the UJC website and/or inform the editors of other journals or other publishers.