Correction and Retraction

PIJAR: Jurnal Pendidikan dan Pengajaran is committed to maintaining the integrity, accuracy, and completeness of the permanent scholarly record. While the journal takes rigorous steps during the peer-review and production stages to ensure quality, errors or ethical concerns may occasionally arise following publication.

In accordance with the guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the journal implements clear protocols for amending published articles through Corrections (Erratum/Corrigendum), Expressions of Concern, and Retractions.

1. Article Corrections

Corrections are published when an error does not compromise the fundamental findings, integrity, or valid conclusions of the research article.

  • Erratum (Publisher Error):
    • Issued to correct a significant error introduced by the journal during editing, typesetting, or production (e.g., corrupted equations, missing lines of text, misidentified author names or affiliations).
  • Corrigendum (Author Error):
    • Issued to correct an inadvertent, genuine error made by the author(s) that affects scientific accuracy or clarity (e.g., mislabeled table columns, inadvertent numerical error in descriptive statistics, omission of non-financial acknowledgments).
  • Implementation Protocol for Corrections:
    • A formal, citable correction notice will be published in the current issue of the journal and assigned its own unique Crossref DOI.
    • The correction notice will explicitly reference the original article (including title, volume, issue, page numbers, and original DOI).
    • A bidirectional hyperlink will connect the original article and the correction notice.
    • The original online article (PDF and HTML) may be updated to the latest corrected version with a clear footnote stating the date of correction.

2. Expressions of Concern

The Editor-in-Chief may issue an Expression of Concern when:

  • There is well-founded suspicion or prima facie evidence of research misconduct (e.g., disputed data integrity, unauthorized authorship, redundant publication), but conclusive evidence is not yet available.
  • An investigation by the authors' institution or an independent body is underway, but a resolution will take significant time.
  • The Expression of Concern alerts readers that the published paper is currently subject to formal inquiry. Once the investigation concludes, the note will either be resolved into a formal retraction, a correction, or dismissed with an explanatory update.

3. Article Retraction

Retraction is a formal mechanism used to alert readers that a published paper's findings, methodology, or conclusions can no longer be relied upon. The main purpose of a retraction is to correct the literature and ensure its integrity, rather than to punish authors.

PIJAR: Jurnal Pendidikan dan Pengajaran will retract a published article under the following circumstances, in alignment with COPE Retraction Guidelines:

  • Clear evidence shows that the findings are unreliable due to major honest error (e.g., calculation mistake, experimental error) or scientific misconduct (fabrication, falsification, manipulation of pedagogical/empirical data).
  • Plagiarism (including text, structural, or conceptual appropriation without attribution) is identified.
  • Findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission, or justification (duplicate/redundant publication).
  • The manuscript reports research conducted without appropriate ethics committee approval or informed consent from human participants (e.g., elementary/secondary school pupils, educators).
  • The peer-review process was compromised (e.g., fake reviewer identities, unauthorized editorial intervention).
  • Author disputes cannot be resolved, or unauthorized authorship practices (gift, ghost, or bought authorship) are established.

Implementation Protocol for Retractions:

  • Retention of the Version of Record (VoR): The original published article will never be completely removed from the website or archival servers, ensuring that the historical bibliographic record remains intact.
  • Watermarking: The original PDF will be replaced with a version where every page is watermarked with the prominent word "RETRACTED".
  • Retraction Notice: A separate, citable Retraction Note detailing the background, reasons, and parties agreeing to the retraction will be published in the current issue, assigned a distinct DOI, and bidirectionally hyperlinked to the retracted paper.
  • Metadata Updating: The retraction notice will be deposited with Crossref and relevant indexing databases to ensure search engines and indexing systems reflect the retracted status immediately.

4. Article Removal (Extreme Cases)

Complete removal of an article from the online platform is an exceptional measure and will only occur under extreme legal or safety conditions, such as:

  • The article contains defamatory content, infringes upon someone’s legal rights, or violates court orders.
  • The content presents immediate and severe harm, endangerment, or violation of child protection regulations.

In such cases, the article metadata and abstract page will remain visible, accompanied by a formal statement explaining that the full text has been removed for legal reasons.