Conflict of Interest

JSQ: Jurnal Studi Al-Qur'an

JSQ requires authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher to disclose any interest that could, or could reasonably be seen to, influence their work. Having a conflict of interest is not in itself wrong, but failing to disclose it is. Disclosure allows editors, reviewers, and readers to judge the work with full information. This policy follows the COPE Core Practices.

In brief: When in doubt, disclose. Authors declare their interests in the Conflict of Interest section of the manuscript. Reviewers and editors with a conflict decline to handle the manuscript. Undisclosed conflicts may lead to rejection, correction, or retraction.

1. What Is a Conflict of Interest?

A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment about research may be influenced by a secondary interest. Conflicts may be:

Financial: Funding, grants, salaries, consultancy fees, honoraria, or other payments from a party that could gain or lose from the publication.
Institutional: Affiliation with an organization whose programs or policies are evaluated in the article, such as a ministry, a pesantren, a madrasah, a tahfiz institution, or a religious or community organization.
Intellectual: Being the developer of a curriculum, teaching method, textbook, application, or instrument that is evaluated in the study.
Personal and Professional: Family, teacher–student, supervisory, or close collaborative relationships, or known rivalries, with people whose work is discussed or evaluated. This includes studying the work or methods of one's own teacher or kyai.
Researcher–Participant: Studying one's own students, santri, colleagues, or institution, which may affect voluntary participation and the objectivity of the analysis.

2. Authors

Every manuscript must include a Conflict of Interest statement, as required by the Author Guidelines, even when there is nothing to declare.
Authors disclose all relevant financial and non-financial interests from the past three years. All sources of funding are stated in the Funding section, including the funder's role, if any, in the study.
Researcher–participant relationships must be explained in the Research Methods section, together with how the risks were managed (see Ethical Clearance).
For double-blind review, any details that would identify the authors are removed from the manuscript and given only in the separate Title Page.
The corresponding author collects the declarations of all co-authors. If a new interest arises during review or after publication, the editor must be informed promptly.

Example statements:

"The authors declare no conflict of interest."
"The first author teaches at the pesantren where the data were collected. Interviews were conducted by a research assistant not involved in teaching the participants."
"The second author co-developed the tahfiz method evaluated in this study and receives no financial benefit from its use."

3. Reviewers

Reviewers must decline an invitation, or inform the editor immediately, if they:

Recognize, or believe they know, the identity of the authors.
Are affiliated with the same institution as the authors, in line with the Peer Review Process.
Have collaborated or co-published with the authors in the past three years, or have a family, supervisory, or close personal relationship with them.
Are working on a competing manuscript, or cannot give an objective assessment for any other reason.

Reviewers must not use unpublished information for their own advantage, and should not ask authors to cite the reviewer's own work without a genuine scholarly reason.

4. Editors and Editorial Board Members

Editors with a conflict take no part in handling the manuscript and have no access to its review records. The Editor-in-Chief assigns another editor.
If the Editor-in-Chief has a conflict or is an author, the manuscript is handled entirely by another member of the editorial board.
Manuscripts submitted by editors or board members go through the same double-blind review and are handled by an independent editor. The published article notes that the manuscript was handled independently.
Editors must not use unpublished information for their own research without the authors' written consent.

5. Publisher

LPPM Universitas Negeri Jakarta guarantees the editorial independence of JSQ. Commercial, institutional, or political considerations, including Article Processing Charges and fee waivers, have no influence on editorial decisions.

6. Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest

Reports are sent to the Editor-in-Chief at jurnalstudialquran@unj.ac.id and acknowledged within 7 working days.
The person concerned is asked to explain within 14 days (manuscripts in review) or 30 days (published articles).
The editor assesses whether the conflict is relevant and whether it could have affected the work or the editorial decision.

Manuscripts in review: The disclosure is added, or the manuscript is reassessed by independent reviewers. In serious cases, it is rejected.
Published articles: A corrigendum adds the disclosure. If the conflict seriously affected the findings, the article may be retracted (see Retraction and Corrections Policies).
Reviewers or editors: Their review or decision is set aside, and the manuscript is reassessed. In serious or repeated cases, they are removed from the journal.

Deliberate concealment is handled under the Research Misconduct policy.