Editorial Policies

Aim and Scope

Journal of Unexpected Findings (JUF) aims to provide a platform for publishing high-quality research articles that present unexpected, null, negative, or inconclusive results. JUF curates articles from diverse fields, including but not limited to natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, and humanities. JUF invites high-quality studies with unexpected outcomes that are contradictory to the hypothesis, underlying theory, and research design. We believe that research with unexpected, null, negative, or inconclusive results does not necessarily translates to a failed study but rather a lesson to learn, which might offer valuable insights into the future research process, methodology, and practice.

The primary aim of JUF is to encourage and promote the publication of research findings that do not confirm or support the initial hypothesis and might not receive attention or recognition through traditional publication outlets. This journal recognizes that negative or null results are equally valuable as positive results, and their dissemination contributes to the advancement of science and knowledge. Therefore, JUF is committed to publishing articles that may not have a significant impact in the short term but can potentially influence future research, theory development, and practice.

JUF is dedicated to promoting open and transparent communication of unexpected research findings and contributing to the growth and diversification of scientific knowledge. The scope of JUF includes but is not limited to empirical studies, theoretical papers, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews. JUF also welcomes replication studies and re-analyses of existing data, as well as conceptual papers that discuss the importance and implications of unexpected findings for advancing knowledge. This journal emphasizes rigorous and transparent methodology and encourages authors to provide detailed descriptions of their methods, data, and analysis.

Section Policies

Peer Review Process

Initial Screening (7 working days)

Submitted manuscripts will be initially screened by the editorial assistant for completeness and to determine if the manuscript meets the general criteria for the journal from the following aspects:

(1). The manuscripts should be within the scope of a specific journal.

(2). The manuscripts should be of acceptable quality.

(3). The manuscripts should comply with the journal's instructions for authors.

(4). The title should be as brief as possible, with no more than 20 words.

(5). All authors of a manuscript should include their full names. Provide the full affiliation for each author, including Department, Faculty, University, City, Zip Code, and State.

(6). A good abstract (200-350 words) should provide the essence of the manuscript in a concise paragraph.

(7). 3-10 keywords should be included for indexing.

(8). A manuscript should be well organized into logical sections. The preferred order of contents should be as follows: Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Acknowledgments, Appendix, References.

(9). All references should be numbered sequentially in the text and listed in the same numerical order in the reference section. The section of references should be more than eight.

(10). All references should be cited in the right citation style.

(11). Figures and tables used in the manuscripts should be relevant to the Task, with informative content and high resolution.

(12). Each figure should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and accompanied by an appropriate descriptive caption.

(13). Each table should be numbered consecutively and labeled with an explanatory title.

(14). Equations should be generated using the equation editor embedded in MS Word or Math Type.

(15). Submissions vary from 5 to 20 pages in single-column format (at least 3000 words but no more than 10000 words, inclusive of references).

(16). The Manuscripts must be written in English. The clarity and fluency of the language should be ensured.

The editorial office will decide to: (a) send the manuscript out for single/double-blind review, (b) request initial revisions prior to the single/double-blind review process, or (c) reject the manuscript. The initial screening result will be sent to the corresponding author via email within 7 working days.

Peer Review (Within 3-4 weeks)

The journal employs a single/double-blind peer review system, which is the most important aspect of the publication process of an article. Each manuscript passing initial screening will be subjected to rigorous and anonymous peer review by a minimum of 2-3 peer reviewers. Referees who review a manuscript remain unknown to the authors. The journal’s independent status ensures a submission acceptance rate based on merit and not favor, bias, or personal preference. All the reviewers send the editorial assistant a detailed report with their comments and recommendations on the manuscript. Authors receive reviewers’ comments and recommendations from the editorial assistant, and they never enter into contact with reviewers. Usually, reviewers will complete their reviews within 3-4 weeks. The reviewers make a recommendation to accept, revise, or reject a manuscript based on the scientific merit and technical quality of the studies reported.

Revision after Peer Review (Within 15 working days)

Authors are required to revise the manuscripts according to the comments of the reviewers and answer all questions raised by reviewers in a cover letter. Any revisions should be marked out. The revised manuscripts and cover letters are required to be sent to us via email in MS Word format or PDF format within 15 working days. Upon resubmission, the academic editor may choose to return the manuscript to the reviewers for additional review or may render a decision of accepting, recommending modification, or rejecting based on his/her personal expertise.

Acceptance Letters (Within 7 working days)

After the revision process, qualified manuscripts will be accepted for publication. The Acceptance Letters will be sent to the corresponding authors within 7 working days.

Proof Reading (Within 3 working days)

Proofreading is the final stage of the editing process. IISTR will conduct an efficient and thorough proofreading process for all the accepted manuscripts. The proofs will be sent to the authors for final confirmation, and authors get the chance to check before publication. Proofs should be checked and returned within 3 days, or they will be regarded as the final version.

Publication Notification (Within a week after publication)

After the article is released on the journal’s website (early access), a publication notification will be sent to the corresponding author with links to the article. The corresponding author will also be notified if an issue that contains their article is published.

Plagiarism Policy

It is necessary for every author to follow the ethical principles provided in the journal's guidelines, specifically to steer clear of submitting the same work multiple times, copying someone else's work, and reusing their own previous work. The manuscript will be reviewed for signs of plagiarism, and if detected, the submission will be denied, and no further submissions will be permitted. The iThenticate plagiarism detection software will be used to scan all articles submitted to the journal. A particular procedure will be carried out to handle any instance of plagiarism.

Open Access Policy

Open access is a publishing model for scholarly communication which enables the dissemination of research articles to the global community without any cost or any form of restriction. It is the practice of providing unrestricted access to peer-reviewed academic journal articles via the internet and is increasingly being provided to scholarly monographs and book chapters. All original research papers published by IISTR are available freely and permanently accessible online immediately after publication. Readers are free to copy and distribute the contributions under the CC license. Authors can benefit from the open-access publication model a lot from the following aspects:

• High Availability and High Visibility----Free and unlimited accessibility of the publication over the internet without any restrictions.
• Rigorous Peer Review of Research Papers----Fast, high-quality single/double-blind peer review.
• Faster Publication with Less Cost----Papers published on the internet without any subscription charge.
• Higher Citation----Open access publications are more frequently cited.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us via email at editor@journal.iistr.org

Article Processing Charge

In an open-access model, we promise that readers don’t pay for the subscription fee to access published articles online. For authors, only some fundamental costs like editing, production, and peer review are included to maintain the normal operations of our institution. These Article Processing Charges (APC) are only used to support publishers to make the published articles freely available to all readers. At the moment, all of the APC components are borne by the IISTR. Thus, publishing in this journal does not require the authors to pay any charge at all.

Article Submission Fee: USD 0

Article Publication Fee: USD 0

Archiving

This journal utilizes the PKP PRESERVATION NETWORK (PKP PN) system using the LOCKSS program to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and allows those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. In addition, all of the articles published in this journal will also be preserved in Indonesian National Repository Garuda - Garba Rujukan Digital.