1. Publication frequency
SINTHOP: Media Kajian Pendidikan, Agama, Sosial dan Budaya publishes two regular issues each year:
The journal maintains this twice-yearly issue structure while applying continuous publication within each active issue. The number of articles may vary according to the number of manuscripts that complete the journal's editorial and production requirements.
2. Continuous publication within issues
An accepted article does not have to wait until every article in the issue is ready. It may be published within the active issue after peer review, editorial decision, copyediting, layout, author proofreading, final editorial approval, metadata verification, and DOI preparation have been completed.
Continuous publication is an operational publication model. It does not mean automatic acceptance, immediate publication after submission, publication before peer review, or publication of an unfinished manuscript.
Articles added during an issue period form part of the same regular issue. They receive final bibliographic information when published and are not labelled as provisional records unless the journal expressly identifies them as such.
3. Editorial and production workflow
- Submission: the manuscript and required metadata are submitted through OJS.
- Administrative and scope screening: the editorial office checks completeness, conformity with the Author Guidelines, scope, basic ethical requirements, and file preparation.
- Editorial assessment: an editor determines whether the manuscript has sufficient scholarly quality and relevance to proceed.
- Peer review: eligible manuscripts undergo double-anonymous peer review under the journal's Peer Review and Conflicts of Interest Policy.
- Revision: authors respond to editorial and reviewer comments and identify the changes made.
- Editorial decision: the responsible editor decides to accept, request further revision, decline, or take another justified editorial action.
- Production: an accepted manuscript proceeds through copyediting, layout, author proofreading, and metadata preparation.
- Final verification: the journal checks the article file, author information, declarations, references, DOI, licence, publication date, volume, issue, and pagination or article identifier.
- Publication: the final article is released within the active issue and becomes part of the journal's scholarly record.
No publication fee, sponsorship, institutional relationship, personal relationship, or ability to pay may determine the scholarly editorial decision.
4. Publication date and version of record
The official publication date is the date on which the final article is made publicly available on the journal platform with its permanent bibliographic information. Acceptance, copyediting, layout, proofreading, or DOI reservation alone does not constitute publication.
At publication, the article should display or be associated with:
- the final title and author information;
- volume, issue, year, and pagination or article identifier;
- the official publication date;
- a DOI and stable article landing page;
- the applicable copyright and licence statement; and
- the final downloadable article file.
The published article is the version of record. Subsequent changes are not made silently. Material amendments are handled through a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other appropriate notice.
5. Issue management and closure
Each regular issue remains active during its stated six-month period. Articles may be added as they complete the publication process. At the end of the issue period, the editorial office verifies the table of contents, article order, bibliographic information, DOI resolution, downloadable files, and issue-level metadata before formally closing the issue.
After closure, an article is not moved to another issue merely for convenience. A change affecting the official bibliographic record must be documented and justified. The journal avoids overlapping issue designations, duplicate article publication, unexplained changes to publication dates, and retrospective alteration of volume or issue numbering.
6. Special issues and supplements
SINTHOP may publish a special issue or supplement when it has a clear scholarly rationale, defined scope, appropriate editorial oversight, sufficient qualified reviewers, and a transparent publication plan.
Special-issue articles are subject to the same authorship, peer-review, ethics, conflict-of-interest, editorial-independence, correction, licensing, and metadata requirements as regular articles. A guest editor may recommend decisions but may not override the Editor-in-Chief's responsibility for integrity and final editorial oversight.
Sponsorship or external funding for a special issue must be disclosed and must not determine article acceptance.
7. DOI and metadata
SINTHOP assigns a DOI to each published article and maintains an article landing page containing its bibliographic information and access to the version of record.
Before publication, the journal verifies author names, author order, affiliations, countries, title, abstract, keywords, references, publication date, volume, issue, pagination or article identifier, licence information, and article URL. DOI metadata should be updated when a documented correction changes relevant bibliographic information.
Author names and affiliations are based on the authors' approved submission metadata and final proof. The journal does not invent unavailable historical metadata or alter authorship without an appropriate authorship-change process.
8. Access, licensing, fees, and preservation
Open access
Published content is made available immediately without a reader subscription or access charge, in accordance with the journal's Open Access, Privacy and Personal Data Policy.
Copyright and licence
Authors retain copyright and grant SINTHOP the non-exclusive right of first publication. Unless a clearly identified exception is stated on the article, SINTHOP publishes articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-SA 4.0). The complete terms are provided in the Copyright and Licensing Policy.
Article processing charges
Any applicable article processing charge, waiver, reduction, payment stage, and refund condition is published in the Article Processing Charges and Waiver Policy. Fees are administered separately from scholarly assessment and are requested only after formal acceptance.
Preservation
The journal maintains its content and metadata in accordance with the Digital Archiving and Preservation Policy. Participation in an external preservation network is claimed only when participation has been verified.
9. Integrity and post-publication action
All submissions and publications are governed by the journal's publication-ethics requirements. Suspected fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, authorship manipulation, peer-review manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, citation manipulation, unethical research, or other integrity concerns may be investigated before or after publication.
Where necessary, SINTHOP may issue a correction, retraction, expression of concern, removal notice in exceptional circumstances, or another clearly labelled editorial notice. Procedures are set out in the Corrections, Retractions, Expressions of Concern, Complaints and Appeals Policy.
Published content is not silently replaced to conceal an error or integrity concern. Minor production errors that do not affect meaning may be corrected transparently under editorial control.
10. Responsibilities and policy review
- Editor-in-Chief: oversees editorial decisions, publication integrity, issue closure, and consistent application of this policy.
- Managing Editor and editorial office: coordinate workflow, production readiness, author communication, and issue-level checks.
- Section or handling editors: manage scholarly assessment and peer review within their assigned authority.
- Production and OJS personnel: verify files, layout, metadata, DOI information, links, licence statements, and online availability.
- Publisher: supports platform continuity, administrative separation of fees from editorial decisions, preservation, and public transparency.
This policy is reviewed periodically and after a material change to publication frequency, workflow, platform, licence, fees, preservation arrangements, or publisher information. Material revisions are identified by a new version number and effective date.