Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Simulacra publishes research on the intersections of digital transformation, identity, and sociocultural dynamics in diverse global and local contexts. The journal emphasizes studies on the sociological implications of digitalization and artificial intelligence, including their roles in reshaping education, social interaction, and empowerment.

The journal also explores the complex interplay of religion, indigeneity, and multiculturalism in contemporary societies, with particular attention to how these elements manifest in gender, family, and urban spaces as sites of resistance and identity negotiation. Research on radicalization, social stratification, and environmental resettlement further highlights the journal's focus on pressing sociopolitical and ecological issues.

By addressing these interconnected themes, the journal seeks to provide critical insights into the evolving contours of social change across varied geographic and cultural landscapes.

 

Section Policies

Articles

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed
 

Peer Review Process

In the reviewing process, there are at least two peer-reviewers for each manuscript in the related topic. In addition, the author(s) can also propose the candidate of reviewers. Judgment from the first reviewer will be the main priority for the editor to make a decision if there are only two peer-reviewers. In the case of three reviewers, the decision will be made from at least two peer-reviewers. 

Generally, the candidate of reviewers will be chosen based on their reputation in the international publication number and quality. Next step, the editor send the invitation letter for each candidate of the reviewer. After the candidate of reviewer informed their availabilities for the reviewing process, the editor creates an account for each reviewer and then send the manuscript by OJS.

All reviewing process are in double blind peer-review and managed by editor in the OJS. 

After being reviewed, there will be four types of editor decision based on the reviewers’ recommendation:

1. Accept Submission: the submission will be accepted without revisions.
2. Revisions Required: the submission will be accepted after minor changes have been made.
3. Resubmit for Review: the submission needs to be re-worked, but with significant changes, may be accepted. It will require a second round of review, however.
4. Decline Submission: the submission will not be published in the journal.

 

The accepted manuscript will be available online following the journal peer-reviewing process.

 

Reviewer Guidelines

1. On receipt of the invitation to review, as a reviewer you should immediately:

a. Read the editor's transmittal e-mail, which includes the article abstract, to determine whether the subject is within your area of expertise and whether you can complete the review in the stated time period.
b. Click the link in the e-mail or directly log in to the Simulacra system and either accept or decline the invitation to review.

2. If you decline the invitation to review:

a. Indicate why you are declining.
b. If possible, please suggest a colleague who may be able to review the manuscript. If appropriate, the editor will send an invitation to review to that individual. You may not “transfer” your invitation to review the manuscript to a colleague.

3. If you accept the invitation to review, you will have access to the complete manuscript and should immediately:

a. Double-check the manuscript title page and the Acknowledgments section to determine whether there is any conflict of interest for you (with the authors, their institution, or their funding sources) and whether you can judge the article impartially.
b. Quickly skim the relevant portions of the manuscript and verify that it fits within the scope of the journal.

4. If you have either a time problem or a conflict of interest, contact the editor for instructions. He/she may extend your deadline or cancel the review assignment as appropriate.

5. If your cursory examination reveals that the manuscript does not fit within the scope of the journal, indicate that in the Comments to the Editor section of the review form.

6. The manuscript provided to you for review is a privileged document. Please protect it from any form of exploitation. Do not cite a manuscript or refer to the work it describes before it has been published and do not use the information that it contains for the advancement of your own research or in discussions with colleagues. Details of a manuscript and its review must remain confidential, before, during and after publication.

7. In your comments intended for the author, do not make statements about the acceptability of a paper (see the next paragraph). Suggested revisions should be stated as such and not expressed as conditions of acceptance. Organize your review so that an introductory paragraph summarizes the major findings of the article, gives your overall impression of the paper, and highlights the major shortcomings. This paragraph should be followed by specific, numbered comments, which, if appropriate, may be subdivided into major and minor points. (The numbering facilitates both the editor's letter to the author and evaluation of the author's rebuttal.) Criticism should be presented dispassionately; offensive remarks are not acceptable.

8. Adopt a positive, impartial, but critical attitude toward the manuscript under review, with the aim of promoting effective, accurate, and relevant scientific communication.

9. Please consider the following aspects when reviewing a manuscript:

a. Significance to the target scientific community
b. Originality
c. Appropriateness of the approach or experimental design
d. Appropriateness of the statistical analyses
e. Adherence to correct scientific nomenclature
f. Appropriate literature citations
g. Adequacy of experimental techniques
h. Soundness of conclusions and interpretation
i. Relevance of discussion
j. Organization
k. Adherence to the Instructions to Authors
l. Adequacy of title and abstract
m. Appropriateness of figures and tables
n. Appropriateness of supplemental material intended for posting (if applicable)
o. Length of the manuscript

10. You are not required to correct deficiencies of style, syntax, or grammar, but any help you can give in clarifying meaning will be appreciated. In particular, point out the use of scientific jargon, misspellings of chemical names, use of outmoded terminology or incorrect genetic nomenclature, and use of misspelled, incorrect, or outdated scientific names of organisms.

11. Your criticisms, arguments, and suggestions concerning the paper will be most useful to the editor and to the author if they are carefully documented. Do not make dogmatic, dismissive statements, particularly about the novelty of the work. Substantiate your statements. Reviewer's recommendations are gratefully received by the editor; however, since editorial decisions are usually based on evaluations derived from several sources, reviewers should not expect the editor to honor every recommendation.

12. After completing your review, click the “Submit Review” button. You may want to save a copy of your review offline for your records. After successful completion of your review, it will be saved in the Simulacra's OJS system.

 

Publication Frequency

Simulacra is published twice a year in June and November since 2018. For every issue, there are ten original articles published both as a print and online edition.

 

Open Access Policy

This journal is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available immediately upon publication without any charge to users or institutions. This is in accordance with Budapest Open Access Initiative.

Our support as an organization for BOAI could be found here. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to full-text articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or author.

 

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.

 

Anti-Plagiarism Policy

We recommend authors to screen plagiarism before submitting an article to our journal. It makes sure the article is original.  Every article submitted to Simulacra is screened by Turnitin, a plagiarism detector software. If a manuscript has over 30% of plagiarism based on the result of the Turnitin check, we will send back the manuscript to the author to be revised for the plagiarised contents.

 

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Simulacra charges the following author fee:

Article Publication Fee: 100 (USD) or 1.500.000 (IDR)

If the paper is accepted for publication, the authors will be asked to pay the fee. Accepted manuscripts will not move into the final production process until payment has been received. The payment should be transferred to our bank account with the following details:

Name of Bank: Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI)
Bank Account: 1812866130
Name of Account Holder: BPN 036 UTM 2 BKL PENDIDIKAN
SWIFT Code: BNINIDJAXXX

Please email the publication fee payment proof to: simulacra@trunojoyo.ac.id

 

Publication Ethics

Simulacra is a peer-reviewed journal. This journal follows guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)  facing all aspects of publication ethics and, in particular, how to handle cases of research and publication misconduct.

This statement clarifies the ethical behavior of all parties involved in the act of publishing an article in this journal, including the author, the Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Board, the peer-reviewer­­­­­s and the publisher. 

Simulacra is dedicated to following best practices on ethical matters, errors, and retractions. The prevention of publication malpractice is one of the important responsibilities of the editorial board. Any kind of unethical behavior is not acceptable, and the journals do not tolerate plagiarism in any form.

Simulacra adapts COPE to meet the high-quality standard of ethics for publisher, editors, authors, and reviewers. As an essential issue, publication ethics needs to be explained clearly to improve the quality of the research worldwide. In this part, we explain the standard for editors, authors, and reviewers. Publisher doesn’t have the right to interfere with the integrity of the contents and only support to publish in a timely manner.

For Editors

Editors should consider these following statements:

  1. Based on the review report of the editorial review board, the editor can accept, reject, or request modifications to the manuscript.
  2. Editors should be responsible for every article published in Simulacra.
  3. The editors may communicate with other editors or reviewers in making the final decision.
  4. An editor has to evaluate the manuscript objectively for publication, judging each on its quality without looking to nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, religion, gender, seniority, or institutional affiliation of the authors. He/she should decline his/her assignment when there is a potential for conflict of interest.
  5. Editors need to ensure the document sent to the reviewer does not contain the information of the author, vice versa.
  6. Editors’ decision should be informed to authors accompanied by reviewers’ comments unless they contain offensive remarks.
  7. Editors should respect requests from authors that an individual should not review the submission if these are well-reasoned and practicable.
  8. Editors and all staffs should guarantee the confidentiality of the submitted manuscript.
  9. Editors will be guided by COPE flowcharts if there is a suspected misconduct or disputed authorship.

For Reviewers

Reviewers need to comment on ethical questions and possible research and publication misconduct:

  1. Reviewers will do the work in a timely manner and should notify the editor if they can not complete the work.
  2. Reviewers need to keep the confidentiality of the manuscript.
  3. Reviewers should not accept to review the manuscripts in which there is a potential conflict of interest between them and any of the authors.

For Authors

Authors should consider these following statements:

  1. Author(s) affirm that the material has not been previously published and that they have not trans­ferred elsewhere any rights to the article.
  2. Author(s) should ensure the originality of the work and they have properly cited others’ work in accordance with the format of the references.
  3. Author(s) should not engage in plagiarism nor self-plagiarism.
  4. Author(s) should ensure that they follow the authorship criteria that are taken from Simulacra that is explained in instruction for the author of Simulacra.
  5. Authors should not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently. It is also expected that the author will not publish redundant manuscripts or manuscripts describing the same research in more than one journal.
  6. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to conception, design, execution or interpretation of the reported study. Others who have made significant contribution must be listed as co-authors. Authors also ensure that all the authors have seen and agreed to the submitted version of the manuscript and their inclusion of names as co-authors.
  7. The author(s) haven’t suggested any personal information that may make the identity of the patient recognizable in any forms of description part, photograph or pedigree.
  8. Author(s) should give the editor the data and details of the work if there are suspicions of data falsification or fabrication.
  9. If at any point in time, the author(s) discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in the submitted manuscript, then the error or inaccuracy must be reported to the editor.
  10. Authors of the journal should clarify everything that may cause a conflict of interests such as work, research expenses, consul­tant expenses, and intellectual property on the document of Simulacra form disclosure. 

Disclaimer

The Editors of Simulacra make every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in its publications. However, the  Editors of Simulacra make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness or suitability for any purpose of the Content and disclaim all such representations and warranties whether express or implied to the maximum extent permitted by law. Any views expressed in this publication are the views of the authors and are not necessarily the views of the Editors of Simulacra.

 

License Terms

Simulacra has a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-SA) or an equivalent license which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium. This license term is the optimal license for the publication, distribution, use, and reuse of scholarly work.

CLICK HERE for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

 

Advertising Policy

At present, we do not publish any advertisements in Simulacra.

 

Conflict of Interest

All authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include but are not limited to financial interests (such as membership, employment, consultancies, stocks/shares ownership, honoraria, grants or other funding, paid expert testimonies, and patent-licensing arrangements) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, personal beliefs).

See below for examples of disclosures:

Conflicts of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stocks in Company Y. Author C has been involved as a consultant and expert witness in Company Z. Author D is the inventor of patent X.

If no conflicts exist, the authors should state:

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

 

Allegations of Misconduct

Plagiarism

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

  • Directly copying text from other sources without attribution
  • Copying ideas, images, or data from other sources without attribution
  • Reusing text from your own previous publications without attribution or agreement of the editor
  • Exception: Reusing text from the Methods section in the author’s previous publications, with attribution to the source, is acceptable.
  • Using an idea from another source with slightly modified language without attribution.

If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may issue a correction or retract the paper as appropriate.

Data fabrication 

This concerns the making up of research findings.

  • Suspected fabricated data in a submitted manuscript
  • Suspected fabricated data in a published manuscript

Data falsification 

Manipulating research data with the intention of giving a false impression. This includes manipulating images (e.g., micrographs, gels, radiological images), removing outliers or “inconvenient” results, changing, adding or omitting data points, etc.

Duplicate submissions

Duplicate submission is a situation whereby an author submits the same or similar manuscripts to two different journals at the same time, either within Academic Journals or any other publisher. This includes the submission of manuscripts derived from the same data in such a manner that there are no substantial differences in the manuscripts. Duplicate submission also includes the submission of the same/similar manuscript in different languages to different journals.

Authorship Issues

Clear policies (that allow for transparency around who contributed to the work and in what capacity) should be in place for requirements for authorship and contributorship, as well as processes for managing potential disputes.

Citation Manipulation

Citation Manipulation includes excessive citations in the submitted manuscript that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article and have been included solely for the purpose of increasing citations to a given author’s work or to articles published in a particular journal. This leads to misrepresenting the importance of the specific work and journal in which it appears and is thus a form of scientific misconduct.

Suspected Manipulation of Peer Review/Bias of Peer Reviews

Simulacra selects the reviewers on any manuscript with due care so as to avoid any conflict of interest between the reviewers and the authors. Our policy is compliant with COPE Guidelines on peer review.

 

Errata and Corrigenda

Changes/additions to accepted articles

All content of published articles is subject to the editorial review process, organized by and under the auspices of the editor. Should the authors wish to add to their article after acceptance, they must submit a request to the editor, and the new content will be reviewed.

  • If the new material is added to the accepted article, it must be submitted for peer review as a new manuscript, referring back to the original;
  • If the new material should replace the original content of the accepted article, the editor may consider the publication of an erratum or a corrigendum.
Erratum

An erratum is a correction of errors introduced to the article by the publisher.

All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage, and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication.

Corrigendum

A corrigendum refers to a change to the article that the author wishes to publish at any time after acceptance. Authors should contact the journal editor, who will determine the impact of the change and decide on the appropriate course of action.

 

Withdrawal of Manuscripts

The author is not allowed to withdraw the submitted manuscripts because the withdrawal wastes valuable resources from editors and reviewers who spent a great deal of time processing the submitted manuscripts and works invested by the publisher. However, the authors could suggest the withdrawal if there is no updated progress review information after six months from our side.

 

Retraction

The papers published in Simulacra will be considered to retract in the publication if:

  1. They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error)
  2. the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing, permission, or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication)
  3. it constitutes plagiarism
  4. it reports unethical research

The mechanism of retraction follows the Retraction Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which can be accessed at https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines

 

Ethical Guidance

Ethical Oversight

According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), ethical oversight should include but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and ethical business/marketing practices. The International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems is committed to considering appeals concerning our authors' non-observance of ethical principles.

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013, and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1975 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Ethical Approval’ of the article.

An example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before participating in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."

Use of Animals in Research

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists).

The International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems endorses the ARRIVE guidelines (https://arriveguidelines.org/arrive-guidelines) for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers can use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, which can be found at: https://arriveguidelines.org/resources/author-checklists.

Research Involving Cell Lines

Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines, the provenance should be stated, and references must also be given to either a published paper or a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

Example of an ethical statement: "The HCT116 cell line was obtained from XXX. The MLH1+ cell line was provided by XXX, Ltd. The DLD-1 cell line was obtained from Dr. XXX. The DR-GFP and SA-GFP reporter plasmids were obtained from Dr. XXX, and the Rad51K133A expression vector was obtained from Dr. XXX."

Research Involving Plants

Experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild), including a collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. We recommend that authors comply with the CBD (https://www.cbd.int/convention/) and the  (https://cites.org/eng).

For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oriza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened, or endangered species, this can be waived, but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.

Example of an ethical statement: "Torenia fournieri plants were used in this study. White-flowered Crown White (CrW) and violet-flowered Crown Violet (CrV) cultivars selected from ‘Crown Mix’ (XXX Company, City, Country) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country)."

 

Digital Marketing

Simulacra utilizes the following digital marketing channels: Instagram, YouTube, X (Twitter), Direct Email.

 

Business Model

Simulacra uses the Open Access (OA) business model scheme and the application of Article Processing Fee (APC).

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Usage

The journal permits limited use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for grammar, language refinement, or data analysis, provided their use is disclosed in the manuscript. AI must not replace the authors' intellectual contributions, and responsibility for content originality and accuracy rests solely with the authors.

All AI assistance must be explicitly stated. Undisclosed AI use or reliance that undermines scholarly integrity may result in rejection or retraction. The journal upholds transparency and ethical academic practices.