Reviewer Guidelines

FOR REVIEWERS

Reviewer Guidelines

Ethical, independent, evidence-based peer review for FUADUNA manuscripts.

Mandatory safeguard for 2026
Peer reviewers must conduct the scientific assessment themselves. Reviewers must not use generative AI or other AI applications to read, summarize, analyze, evaluate, score, or draft review comments, and must not upload any part of a confidential manuscript to an AI system.

1. Before Accepting a Review

A review invitation should be accepted only when the reviewer can provide an independent and competent assessment within the deadline stated by the handling editor.

  • Expertise: accept only manuscripts that substantially match your current scholarly expertise.
  • Availability: accept only when you can complete a careful review within the agreed time frame.
  • Competing interests: disclose financial, professional, personal, institutional, ideological, or recent collaborative relationships that could reasonably affect impartiality.
  • Identity and independence: do not transfer the invitation, involve a co-reviewer, or ask another person to review without prior permission from the editor.
  • Confidentiality: do not use an invitation to obtain early access to unpublished findings, data, arguments, or sources.

2. Confidentiality and Data Protection

Submitted manuscripts, supplementary files, editorial correspondence, and reviewer reports are confidential. Reviewers must not share, quote, circulate, reproduce, or use unpublished material for personal, academic, commercial, or competitive advantage.

  • Do not contact the authors directly about the manuscript unless explicitly authorized by the editor.
  • Do not disclose the manuscript or the review process to colleagues, students, institutions, social media, or third-party services.
  • Destroy or securely delete local copies of confidential files after the review process when they are no longer needed.
  • Notify the editor immediately if confidentiality is accidentally compromised.

3. Prohibition on AI Use in Peer Review

In accordance with the 2026 Indonesian technical guidelines for scientific journal accreditation, AI must not be used in the peer-review process. The prohibition covers generative AI, large language models, AI-assisted summarizers, automated evaluation tools, and similar services.

  • Do not upload the manuscript, abstract, figures, tables, references, supplementary data, or editorial messages to an AI application.
  • Do not use AI to summarize, interpret, assess, compare, critique, score, or recommend a decision on the manuscript.
  • Do not use AI to generate, rewrite, polish, or substantively prepare review comments.
  • If you cannot complete the assessment independently without AI assistance, inform the editor and decline the assignment.

4. What the Review Should Assess

Review dimension Questions for the reviewer
Scope and relevance Does the manuscript fit FUADUNA's interdisciplinary scope in religious and social studies and make a meaningful scholarly contribution?
Originality and contribution Is the research question, argument, source base, interpretation, or synthesis sufficiently original and significant?
Conceptual framework Are concepts, theories, and previous studies selected and used critically rather than merely listed?
Methodology Are the research design, data or sources, sampling or selection logic, analytical procedures, and ethical considerations appropriate and sufficiently transparent?
Results and argument Are claims supported by evidence and is the reasoning coherent, proportionate, and logically defensible?
Discussion Does the manuscript explain its contribution in relation to relevant scholarship, limitations, and implications?
Research and publication ethics Are there concerns involving plagiarism, duplicate submission, fabricated or falsified evidence, inappropriate authorship, undeclared conflicts, unethical research, or other integrity issues?
Presentation Is the manuscript organized and readable enough for scholarly evaluation? Language editing should not replace substantive review.

5. Preparing the Review Report

Reviews should be fair, specific, respectful, and useful to both the editor and the author. Criticism must address the work rather than the person.

  1. Brief assessment: summarize the manuscript's purpose and principal contribution in your own words.
  2. Major comments: identify issues that materially affect validity, interpretation, originality, ethics, or contribution. Explain why each issue matters and, where possible, suggest a feasible way to address it.
  3. Minor comments: list focused improvements that do not determine the overall validity of the work.
  4. References: recommend citations only when they are genuinely necessary for the manuscript. Citation suggestions must not be used to inflate the reviewer's, editor's, or associates' citation counts.
  5. Confidential comments to the editor: use only for information that should not be communicated directly to the author, such as suspected misconduct or a significant competing interest.
  6. Recommendation: ensure that your recommendation is consistent with the written review. The final editorial decision remains with the editor.

6. Suspected Misconduct

If a reviewer suspects plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabricated or falsified data, manipulated images, unethical research, undisclosed conflicts of interest, citation manipulation, authorship problems, or peer-review manipulation, the reviewer should report the concern confidentially to the handling editor and provide specific evidence where possible. Reviewers should not conduct an independent investigation or contact the authors or their institutions directly.

7. Editorial Decision and Reviewer Recognition

Reviewer recommendations inform editorial decisions but do not determine them. The Editor-in-Chief or authorized handling editor considers the reviewers' reports, the manuscript's compliance with journal policies, and any relevant ethical or methodological issues. A third reviewer or additional specialist advice may be sought when reports conflict or specialized expertise is required.

FUADUNA will acknowledge reviewer service only through mechanisms actually supported by the journal and with the reviewer's consent. Reviewer identities will not be disclosed in a manner that compromises the journal's double-anonymous review model.

8. Ethical Reference

These guidelines are informed by the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers and the Indonesian 2026 technical guidelines for scientific journal accreditation. Reviewers are expected to prioritize confidentiality, independence, objectivity, timely assessment, constructive criticism, and disclosure of competing interests.