Allegation of Research Misconduct

Automech: Jurnal Teknik Mesin takes every allegation of research and publication misconduct seriously, whether it concerns a manuscript under consideration or an article that has already been published. Automech handles such allegations by following the guidelines and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

1. What is research misconduct?

For the purpose of this policy, research and publication misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

Fabrication: making up data, results, or experiments and reporting them as real.
Falsification: manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, data, images, or figures, or changing or omitting data or results so that the research is not accurately represented.
Plagiarism: using another person’s ideas, text, data, figures, or results without proper acknowledgement, including self-plagiarism (text recycling) without citation.
Duplicate or redundant publication: submitting or publishing the same work, or substantially the same work, in more than one journal or conference proceeding.
Authorship misconduct: including people who did not contribute to the work (gift or ghost authorship), excluding people who did contribute, or adding, removing, or changing authors without following the Automech Correction and Retraction Policy (an email request with a statement letter signed by all authors).
Citation manipulation: excessive self-citation, or citations added only to increase the citation count of a person or journal.
Peer review manipulation: suggesting fake reviewers, reviewing one’s own work, or any attempt to influence the review process improperly.
Undisclosed conflicts of interest that could affect the interpretation of the work.
Undisclosed or improper use of generative AI, including generating data, results, or references that do not exist.

Honest errors and differences of opinion in the interpretation of data are not considered misconduct.

2. How to report an allegation

Anyone, including readers, reviewers, editors, and authors, may report a suspected case of misconduct to the Automech editorial office by email at [Automech email address]. The report should include:

the title of the manuscript or article, and its submission ID or volume/issue;
a clear description of the suspected misconduct;
supporting evidence, for example the original source and the overlapping parts for plagiarism, or the specific data, figures, or images in question;
the name and contact details of the person making the report.

The identity of the person making the report will be kept confidential and will not be revealed to the authors without their permission. Anonymous reports will be considered if they include sufficient and specific evidence.

3. How Automech handles allegations

Initial assessment. The Editor-in-Chief reviews the report to decide whether it is specific and supported by enough evidence to proceed.
Investigation. The Automech editorial team examines the evidence. This may include a similarity check, comparison with other publications, and consultation with reviewers or subject experts.
Author response. The corresponding author is informed of the concern and given an opportunity to respond and provide an explanation, original data, or other evidence within a set period. All authors may be contacted.
Institutional involvement. If the response is not satisfactory or the case is serious, Automech may contact the authors’ institution or funding body and ask it to investigate.
Decision. The Editor-in-Chief makes a final decision based on the evidence and the authors’ response.
Notification. The authors and the person who made the report are informed of the outcome, and the case is closed.

Throughout the process, Automech treats all parties fairly and confidentially. An allegation does not mean that the authors are guilty until the investigation is complete.

4. Possible outcomes

All outcomes follow the Automech Correction and Retraction Policy. Depending on the type and seriousness of the misconduct, and on whether the article has been published, AutoMech may take one or more of the following actions:

4.1 If the allegation is not supported

No action is taken, and the case is closed.

4.2 Manuscripts under consideration

The manuscript is rejected if misconduct is confirmed.
If the authors withdraw the manuscript after it has entered the review process, including during an investigation, all authors will be banned from submitting to Automech for one (1) year, as stated in the Automech Correction and Retraction Policy.

4.3 Published articles

Retraction is applied only when the article is confirmed, after investigation by the Automech editorial team, to be plagiarized from another person’s work that was published earlier. A retraction notice will be published and linked to the article, and the article will remain accessible but clearly marked as “RETRACTED”.
Expression of concern may be published and linked to the article for other confirmed or serious misconduct, so that readers are informed.
The content of a published article will not be changed. Corrections are limited to errors in the writing of author names and affiliations, as stated in the Automech Correction and Retraction Policy.

4.4 Sanctions and notification

The authors may be banned from submitting to Automech for a period determined by the Editor-in-Chief.
Automech may notify the authors’ institution, funding body, or other journals involved.

5. Misconduct by reviewers or editors

This policy also applies to reviewers and editors. Misconduct such as breaching the confidentiality of a manuscript, using unpublished data from a manuscript under review, or failing to disclose a conflict of interest will be investigated, and the person involved may be removed from the Automech reviewer or editorial team.

Contact

Please send all reports of suspected misconduct to the Automech: Jurnal Teknik Mesin editorial office at: jtm[at]umpo.ac.id.