Focus and Scope

Humaniora focuses on the publication of articles that transcend disciplines and appeal to a diverse readership, advancing the study of humanities from the perspective of Indonesian or Indonesia-related culture. These are articles discussing norms, values, worldviews and symbolic meanings that strengthen critical approaches, increase the quality of critique, or innovate methodologies in the investigation of Indonesian humanities.

Submitted articles may originate from a diverse range of fields—anthropology, history, archaeology, tourism, media studies, cultural linguistics, and ethnographic literature—but we expect them to be presented within the context of Indonesian culture and focus on the development of a critical understanding of Indonesia’s rich and diverse culture. Only original research articles and book reviews are accepted.

Section Policies

Research Articles | Regular Edition

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Research Articles | Thematic Edition

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Empirical Reports

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

Humaniora employs a double-blind peer review, which means that both the reviewers’ and authors’ identities are concealed from each other throughout the review process. A detailed summary of our full editorial process, including peer review, is as follows. 

Publication Frequency

Humaniora is regularly published biannually in June and December.

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.

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. More...

Publication Ethics

Humaniora uses the Committee of Publication Ethics (CoPE) as its reference on publication ethics. We are strongly opposed to the publication of plagiarized work or duplicate submissions. In addition, we have a commitment to ensure that all submissions are original. Therefore, the editorial office of our journal is responsible to cross-check to ensure that submitted manuscripts have not been published prior to their submission to Humaniora.

There is a limit to the extent that Humaniora can examine submitted works. As such, we call upon external reviewers and the academic community to report any misconduct to our help desk officer via humaniora@ugm.ac.id  for prompt action to be taken.

Humaniora may initiate a retraction if a work is proven to be fraudulent, or an expression of concern if our editors have well-founded suspicion of misconduct. In addition, Humaniora can facilitate a replacement. In this case, the author(s)'s of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original article and replace it with a revised version.

Neither peer-reviewer's comments nor correspondence should contain personal attacks on authors. Editors and peer-reviewers should only criticize the work, not the researcher and should edit (or reject) letters containing personal or offensive statements.

Authors of Humaniora must adhere to the following guidelines:

• The authorship should balance intellectual contributions to the conception, design, analysis, and writing of the manuscript against other work in relation to the research. If there is no task that can reasonably be attributed to a particular individual, this individual should not be credited with the authorship.
• Authors must declare that the work reported is their own and that they are the copyright owner (or else have obtained the copyright owner's permission).
• Authors must declare that the submitted article and its essential content have not previously been published and are not being considered for publication elsewhere.
• The author should avoid disputes over attribution of academic credit. Therefore, it is helpful to decide early on who will be credited as corresponding author, contributors, and who will be acknowledged.
• Authors must take public responsibility for the content of their paper. It is unethical to submit a manuscript to more than one journal concurrently.
• Any conflict of interest must be clearly stated.
• Authors must acknowledge the data sources of their research and should acknowledge financial support sources to the research if any.
• All errors discovered in the manuscript after submission must be quickly communicated to the Editor.
• Authors should state that the papers they submit have been approved by the relevant research ethics committee or institutional review board. If human participants were involved, manuscripts must be accompanied by a statement that the participants had signed informed consent forms.
• Authors should submit a short description of all contributions to their manuscript. Each author's contribution should be described in brief. Authors of research papers should state whether they had complete access to the study data that support the publication. Contributors who do not qualify as authors should also be listed and their particular contribution described. This information should appear as an acknowledgment.
• Authors should include information about their research fundings in their manuscripts.
• Authors have a right to appeal editorial decisions.

Reviewers of Humaniora must adhere to the following guidelines:

• All manuscripts are reviewed in fairness based on the intellectual content of the paper regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenry nor political values of the authors.
• Any observed conflict of interest during the review process must be communicated to the editor.
• All information pertaining to the manuscript is kept confidential.
• Any information that may be the reason for a publication rejection must be communicated to the Editor.
• The duty of confidentiality in the assessment of a manuscript must be maintained by expert reviewers, and this extends to reviewers’ colleagues who may be asked (with the editor’s permission) to give opinions on specific sections.
• Submitted manuscript should not be retained or copied.
• Reviewers and editors should not make any use of the data, arguments, or interpretations unless they have the authors’ permission.
• Reviewers should provide speedy, accurate, courteous, unbiased, and justifiable reports.
• Reviewers assigned to an article will comment on the following items:
• The importance, originality, and timeliness of the study
• Strengths and weaknesses of the study design and data analysis for research papers or the analysis and commentary for essays
• Writing, organization, and presentation
• The degree to which the findings justify the conclusion
• The relevance, usefulness, and comprehensibility of the article for the Journal’s target audience.

Editors of Humaniora must adhere to the following guidelines:

• Editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the paper’s importance, originality, and clarity, and the study’s relevance to the remit of the journal.
• Editors must treat all submitted papers as confidential.
• Editors should inform peer reviewers about this Misconduct.
• Editors should encourage peer-reviewers to consider ethical issues raised by the research they are reviewing.
• Editors should request additional information from authors if they feel this is required.
• Editors should exercise sensitivity when publishing images of objects that might have cultural significance or cause offense.
• Editors should inform readers if ethical breaches have occurred.
• Editors should encourage peer-reviewers to decline peer-review request if they identify a conflict of interest with the manuscript.
• Editors may assign peer-reviewers suggested by authors but should not consider suggestions made by authors as binding.
• Editors should mediate all exchanges between authors and peer reviewers during the peer-review process (i.e. prior to publication). If agreement cannot be reached, editors should consider inviting comments from additional peer reviewer(s) if the editor feels that this would be helpful.
• Decisions by editors about whether or not to publish submitted manuscripts must not be influenced by pressure from the editor's employer, the journal owner, or the publisher.
• Editors should publish corrections for discovered errors that could affect the interpretation of data or information presented in a manuscript.
• Editors should expect allegations of theft or plagiarism to be substantiated and should treat allegations of theft or plagiarism seriously.
• Editors should keep peer-reviewers’ identities from authors. If peer-reviewers’ identities are revealed, editors should discourage authors from contacting peer-reviewers directly, especially when misconduct is suspected.
• Editors should reserve the right to reject manuscripts if there is a doubt whether appropriate procedures have been followed. If a paper has been submitted from a country where there is no ethics committee or institutional review board, editors should use their own experience to judge whether or not the paper can be published. If the decision is made to publish a paper under this circumstance, a short statement should be included to explain this situation.
• Editors should ensure timely peer-review and publication for manuscripts they receive, especially where findings may have important implications.
• The Editorial Board is responsible for making publication decisions based on the reviewer’s evaluation, policies of the journal editorial board and legal restraint acting against plagiarism, libel, and copyright infringement.

Screening for Plagiarism

Manuscripts submitted to Humaniora are screened for plagiarism using a Turnitin. In accordance with our publication ethics, manuscripts found to have an unacceptable level of similarity (20%) to a previously published article are immediately rejected.

Review Guidelines

All papers submitted to Humaniora undergo a rigorous peer review to ensure that they not only fit into the journal's scope but are of sufficient academic quality and novelty to appeal to our readers. As a reviewer, you are required to uphold this standard.

These guidelines will help you understand your responsibilities as a reviewer, as well as your ethical obligations to both the journal and the authors. You will also be introduced to what you should be looking for in a manuscript so that your review will be consistent with others requested by the journal. This is particularly important as all articles submitted to Humaniora should be evaluated on a level playing field.

Your responsibilities as a reviewer
As a reviewer, you are responsible for reading the manuscript and evaluating its suitability for publication in Humaniora. You are expected to provide constructive, impartial, unambiguous, and honest feedback to the authors, with the purpose of encouraging them to improve their manuscript to the point that it can be published in Humaniora.

Your role in Humaniora’s commitment to author development
We believe that publication is not an endpoint, but rather—through its function as a facilitator of scientific debate—one step of many in an author’s evolution. Any author, but especially one in the early stages of their career, should come out of the review process has improved as a writer and researcher. For this reason, Humaniora urges reviewers to not only do their part in helping a manuscript reach its potential but to draw from their wealth of experience to help up-and-coming authors find their true voice. By providing thoughtful, constructive criticism that authors can use to shape their subsequent writing, you aid us in paying the knowledge forward.

A further contribution you make is in establishing a standard of good reviewing practices, showing through example how a peer review is to be conducted.

Conversely, we must also emphasize that any form of criticism aimed at demoralizing an author is unacceptable, regardless of a manuscript’s academic merit (or lack thereof). Reviewer comments that in any way intimidate, denigrate, or discourage an author from pursuing the publication of their present or any future article are not tolerated, and any reviewer who exhibits this detrimental behavior will be permanently barred from contributing further to Humaniora.

Reviewer Ethics
Humaniora relies on the impartiality and discretion of its reviewers, and as one, you have entrusted with confidential material meant solely for critical evaluation. Without exception, you must treat all documents and correspondence related to the review with care. You should:

• Never use any of the information related to the review for the advancement of your own research or career, or to discredit another party.
• Never discuss any aspect of the manuscript with a third party.
• Ensure that all information and details related to the review and the review process remain confidential before, during, and after publication.
• Maintain the integrity of the double-blind peer review process. Do not under any circumstances contact any of the authors to discuss their manuscript.
• Be fair, honest, and objective in your evaluation of the manuscript.
• Declare a conflict of interest, and recuse yourself immediately if you believe your impartiality has been compromised.

The Review Process
Things to consider before agreeing to review a manuscript
Before you agree to review a manuscript, you should be certain that you have the necessary expertise and time to provide a critical evaluation of the article. Ask yourself whether:

• The article matches your expertise. Log into your Humaniora account and read the manuscript's abstract to determine whether your field of expertise matches that of the manuscript.
• You are able to both complete the review on time and dedicate the appropriate amount of time to conducting a thorough review. A review should be completed within three weeks. If you do not think you can complete the review within this timeframe, please let the editor know. If possible, please also suggest an alternate reviewer. If you agree to review a manuscript, but later on find yourself unable to complete it on time, please contact the editor as soon as possible.
• You have any conflict of interest. Determine if there is any conflict of interest that may affect your impartiality. If there is, you should contact the editor and immediately recuse yourself. If you were unable to detect any conflict before agreeing to review the manuscript, but find one during the review, simply contact the editor and explain why you cannot continue.

Conducting the Review (Humaniora’s review procedure)
Humaniora uses an online submission and peer review system. When a reviewer is requested to review a paper submitted to Humaniora, they will have a journal account created for them, through which they will be able to read the abstract and decide on whether to agree to review it.

If you have been requested to review a paper, simply log into your reviewer account, read the provided abstract, and indicate whether you agree to review it. If you decline to review the manuscript, please include the reason why, and if possible, suggest an alternate reviewer from a similar field.

To ensure the integrity of the peer-review process, all further correspondence will be through this system, with the reviewer being given access to the full manuscript and provided with a review page to fill out and submit. If you wish, you can also provide comments directly on the manuscript file, but be sure that all comments are made anonymously and focus on the content of the article, not its layout or formatting.

Basic criteria
Your review should look at both the overall quality of the manuscript and the accuracy and precision of its details, with the former informed by the latter. Assess the following aspects:

• Scope. Is the manuscript within Humaniora’s scope? How interesting and relevant will the article be to our readers?
• Adherence to Humaniora’s author guidelines. Does the manuscript adhere to the journal's guidelines?
• The novelty of the research. If this is a research article, is it sufficiently novel and interesting? Does it add new knowledge? How original is the research?
• Appropriateness of the title. Does the title accurately represent the content?
• Quality of the content. Does the article adhere to Humaniora’s standards? Is the research question an important one? Does the manuscript help to expand or further current research in its respective field?
• Clarity of the content. How good is the English? Will Humaniora’s readers be able to understand the arguments made by the author(s) without confusion? Is there a logical progression and evident organization in the article? 
• Methodology. If this is a research article, is its description of the methodology informative, clear, and concise? Is the methodology of the research precise and properly conducted? How appropriate is the approach or experimental design?
• The significance of the findings. What are the implications of the findings? How significantly will this manuscript contribute to the humanities?
• Appropriateness of tables, figures, boxes, and/or supplementary material. Is every figure, table, or box necessary and correctly described? Is the supplementary material appropriate for the content?
• Completeness of the data. If this is a research article, how complete are the data?
• The relevance of the discussion. Is the discussion relevant to the results and rest of the content? Have the authors appropriately discussed their results in the context of previous work?
• Appropriateness of citations/references. Are all citations accounted for? Is there an appropriate amount of citations for the content (neither too few nor too many)?
• Adherence to correct scientific nomenclature. Are technical terms used correctly?

Publication ethics is not limited to these four items (you can read Humaniora’s full publication ethics statement here). If you believe the author(s) have attempted to mislead readers, infringed upon a copyright or patent, or might jeopardize the integrity of the journal in any other way, please contact the section editor.

Submitting the review
The Humaniora review form
Once you have gathered enough information to make a decision on the manuscript, log into your Humaniora account to complete the review. At the minimum, you will be required to grade the manuscript based on the aforementioned criteria, as well as to summarize your major findings and give your overall impression of the article. Although it is only optional, we highly encourage you to also take the opportunity to comment on the manuscript in more detail, and provide specific suggestions that might improve any aspect of it.

If you have made specific comments in the manuscript file, remember to anonymize them to prevent the authors from being able to identify you.

Making good comments
It's important to ensure that all comments are constructive and intended to better the quality of the manuscript (or otherwise help the authors understand where they went wrong). Please reconsider making comments that fall out of this purview.
Follow good commenting practices. For example:

• Do not comment on the acceptability of the manuscript, and avoid suggesting revisions as conditions for acceptance.
• Provide detailed, unambiguous comments.
• Be respectful and positive. Your goal should be to help the author(s) improve their article, by providing constructive criticism and helpful suggestions. Consider how you would like your own manuscript to be reviewed. (Also note Humaniora’s aforementioned policy on malicious commenting.)
• Highlight areas that need clarification or should be elaborated further by the authors.
• Make suggestions on how the authors can improve problematic passages. How might they improve the clarity of a given section?
• You are not required to edit the style or grammar of the manuscript, but any improvement to the clarity of the content is greatly appreciated.
• Highlight consistent instances of misspelled technical terms.
• Avoid making dogmatic statements. You should be able to back up your comments with proof or precedence in previous literature.
• Take care not to dismiss the manuscript, whether in its novelty, methodology, or findings.

Your recommendation
Your final task as a reviewer will be to recommend that the manuscript is either; a) accepted as is, b) accepted with minor revisions, c) accepted with major revisions, or d) rejected. If the manuscript is rejected, you should explain your reasons why.
Regardless of what you recommend, your decision should be supported by the facts of the evaluation and backed with constructive criticism. As one of at least two reviewers, your recommendation may differ from that of your colleagues. Therefore, ensuring that you conduct a good critical review is important, as it enables Humaniora’s editorial board to make an informed final decision on the manuscript. Also note that the final decision on the manuscript is made by the editorial board, taking into account ever reviewer’s recommendations, and your recommendation might not be reflected in this decision.