Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Journal of Tropical Soils (JTS) publishes all aspects in the original research of soil science, including:

  • Soil physics and soil conservation;
  • Soil mineralogy;
  • Soil chemistry and soil fertility;
  • Soil biochemistry;
  • Soil genesis and classification;
  • Soil survey and land evaluation;
  • Land development
  • Environmental management;
  • and related subjects in which using soil from tropical and sub tropical areas.

 

Section Policies

Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

All submissions are reviewed by one of the editor and at least two reviewers. The JTS uses anonymous reviewing, in which the identities of authors and reviewers are kept confidential (double blind reviewer). Authors are requested not to suggest reviewers with whom they have a personal or professional relationship, especially if that relationship would prevent the reviewer from having an unbiased opinion of the work of the authors. A working e-mail address for each reviewer is essential for rapid review in the event that reviewer is selected from those that are identified by the authors. You may also select reviewers you do not want to review your manuscript, but please state your reason for doing so.

 

Publication Frequency

Published three times a year in January, May and September. Articles are written in English. Print ISSN 0852-257X, online ISSN 2086-6682.

 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

 

PUBLICATION ETICS AND MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

Journal of Tropical Soils (J. Trop. Soils - JTS) is a peer-reviewed electronic international journal. This statement clarifies ethical behaviour of all parties involved in the act of publishing an article in this journal, including the author, the chief editor, the Editorial Board, the peer-reviewer­­­­­ and the publisher (University of Lampung). This statement is based on COPE's Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Ethical Guideline for Journal Publication

The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed JTS journal is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society.

University of Lampung as publisher of Journal of Tropical Soils takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities. We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, the Department of Soil Science, the University of Lampung and Editorial Board will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful and necessary.

Publication decisions

The editor of the Journal of Tropical Soils is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play

An editor at any time evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention

Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

The authors are obliged to provide a statement letter, stating that their works are original and have not been published elsewhere (partly or in full), together with the manuscript during the submission process. In addition, the reviewers should help the editors to check the originality of the submitted manuscripts online. Further, editor will scan for plagiarism the submitted manuscripts using online plagiarism checker or detector.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Consequences of Misconduct

If there is a suspicion of misconduct (i.e. plagiarism or redundant publication) on a submitted manuscript or a published manuscript, the journal editor will investigate the case following the COPE (Commitee on Publication Ethics) guidelines (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts), which were developed for COPE by Liz Wager of Sideview (www.lizwager.com), 2013 - What to Do if You Suspect Plagiarism and 2016 - What to Do if You Suspect Redundant (Duplicate) Publication.

Consequences of misconduct include the following actions:

If the manuscript is under reviewing process, the manuscript will be rejected for publication and returned to the authors. 
If the manuscript has been published in JTS, the manuscript will be retracted from the journal, providing published statement of redundant publication.
Considering to inform author's institution

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

 

Plagiarism policy

Whether intentional or not, plagiarism is a serious violation. Plagiarism is the copying of ideas, text, data and other creative work (e.g. tables, figures and graphs) and presenting it as original research without proper citation. The Journal defines plagiarism as a case in which a paper reproduces another work with at least 25% similarity and without citation. The Journal checks the indication of plagiarism on each submitted manuscript using ithenticate software. If evidence of plagiarism is found before/after acceptance or after publication of the paper, the author will be offered a chance for rebuttal. If the arguments are not found to be satisfactory, the manuscript will be retracted and the author sanctioned from publishing papers for a period to be determined by the responsible Editor(s).

 

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Dermiyati

Editor-in-Chief Journal of Tropical Soils

 

 

 

WITHDRAWAL OF MANUSCRIPTS

  1. The author is not allowed to withdraw submitted manuscripts, because it will be waste of time of the editors and referees for processing submitted manuscript, and works invested by the publisher.
  2. It is unethical to withdraw a submitted manuscript from one journal if accepted by another journal.  However, if the author still requests withdrawal of his/her manuscript when the manuscript is still in the peer-reviewing process, the author will be punished with paying $60 per manuscript, as withdrawal penalty to the publisher. Moreover, the withdrawal of manuscript after the manuscript is accepted for publication, the author will be punished by paying US$120 per manuscript.
  3. Withdrawal of manuscript is only allowed after the withdrawal penalty has been fully paid to the Publisher. If the author doesn't agree to pay the penalty, the author and his/her affiliation will be blacklisted for publication in this journal. Even, his/her previously published articles will be removed from our online system.