Editorial guidelines

As an editor for Terra Alimentaria, you are the gatekeeper of scientific integrity. You play a vital role in representing and upholding the journal’s profile, scientific reputation, and academic rigor. These guidelines provide a comprehensive framework for our editors to manage the peer-review and publication process.

Your expertise and strategic guidance ensure our content reflects cutting-edge developments in food science and technology, while strictly complying with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and national journal accreditation standards (Regulation of the Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology of Indonesia No. 9 of 2026).

1. Editorial Team Structure

To ensure efficient manuscript handling and workload distribution, Terra Alimentaria maintains a structured editorial hierarchy:

Editor-in-Chief: Bears ultimate responsibility for the journal's academic content, overall strategy, final publication decisions, and adherence to national accreditation criteria.
Section Editors: Manage specific thematic sections of the journal, perform initial manuscript triage, assign qualified peer reviewers, and recommend editorial decisions to the Editor-in-Chief.
Managing Editor: Oversees the day-to-day operational workflow on OJS 3.5, managing submission tracking, copyediting, proofreading, metadata verification, and publication scheduling.
Editorial Board Members (Advisory Role): Comprising recognized experts who provide strategic guidance, promote the journal, assist with peer review, and advise on policy developments.

2. Core Responsibilities and Accreditation Compliance

Editors of Terra Alimentaria work collaboratively to maintain efficient and ethical publishing workflows. In alignment with Permendiktisaintek No. 9 Tahun 2026, editors must commit to:

Community Engagement & Diversity: Actively inviting high-quality submissions and fostering international and national authorship diversity. Editors must ensure representation of reviewers from diverse institutional and geographical backgrounds.
Substantial Scientific Contribution: Ensuring that published articles maintain a high standard of novelty, methodological rigor, and citation impact, aligning with the journal's core focus on food technology and food systems.
Professional Conduct: Executing editorial duties with complete objectivity, confidentiality, and freedom from commercial or institutional bias.

3. Initial Manuscript Evaluation (Desk Review)

Upon receiving a new submission in the OJS 3.5 platform, the assigned editor must conduct a prompt initial assessment before sending the manuscript out for external peer review. The editor must verify:

Aims and Scope: Does the manuscript fall strictly within the journal's scope?
Originality and Plagiarism: The editor must review the similarity report (e.g., Turnitin/iThenticate). If the similarity index exceeds the journal's threshold (typically > 20%, excluding quotes and references) or reveals significant uncredited overlap, the manuscript must be desk-rejected.
Formatting and Completeness: Does the manuscript follow the Author Guidelines? Are all necessary declarations (Conflicts of Interest, Data Availability, Funding) and ethical approvals (IRB/IACUC) present?
Scientific Merit: Does the manuscript present a clear hypothesis, robust methodology, and readable English?

Action: Manuscripts that fail these basic criteria should be Desk Rejected immediately, accompanied by a polite and clear explanation to the authors, saving both the authors' and reviewers' time.

4. Managing the Peer Review Process

If the manuscript passes the desk review, the editor is responsible for managing a rigorous Single-Blind Peer Review.

4.1. Selecting Reviewers

Editors must select a minimum of two independent external experts with a strong publication record in the specific topic of the manuscript.
Diversity: Reviewers must not be from the same institution as the authors.
Conflict of Interest (COI): Editors must ensure that selected reviewers have no recent collaborations (within the last 3 years) or known personal/financial ties with the authors.

4.2. Monitoring the Review Process

Editors must respect the time of authors by actively monitoring reviewer deadlines via the OJS dashboard.
If a reviewer fails to respond to an invitation or misses a deadline, the editor must promptly send reminders or invite alternative reviewers to prevent publication delays.

4.3. Evaluating Reviewer Reports

Before passing reviewer comments to the authors, the editor must evaluate the reports for quality and professionalism:

Ensure the reviewers provided substantive, constructive feedback rather than just a "checkbox" review.
Redact Hostility: Editors must redact any ad-hominem, discriminatory, or highly aggressive remarks made by a reviewer.
Citation Manipulation: Editors must actively check if a reviewer is coercing the authors into citing the reviewer's own work without clear scientific justification. If discovered, the editor should remove the coercive citation request from the report.

5. Making Editorial Decisions

The handling editor is responsible for synthesizing the reviewers' reports and making a final, objective decision. Editors must not simply tally the reviewers' recommendations (e.g., 1 Accept + 1 Reject ≠ Automatic Revise); they must read the reports and use their scientific judgment.

Accept Submission: The manuscript is scientifically sound and requires no further changes.
Revisions Required (Minor or Major): The editor must clearly summarize what the authors need to address. For major revisions, the editor should clarify whether the revised manuscript will be sent back to the original reviewers.
Decline Submission (Reject): If the methodology is fundamentally flawed, lacks novelty, or if authors fail to adequately address reviewer concerns in a revision, the manuscript must be rejected. The decision letter must provide clear, constructive reasons.

Note: If two reviewers provide diametrically opposed recommendations, the editor should either make a decision based on their own expertise or invite a third adjudicating reviewer.

6. Timeliness and Responsiveness

Adhering strictly to the journal’s stated publication frequency and maintaining transparency across all editorial stages is vital for accreditation. We expect editors to:

Complete Desk Reviews within 7 days.
Secure reviewers within 14 days of submission.
Deliver a first decision to the authors within 4 to 6 weeks.
Respond promptly and professionally to author queries and appeals.

7. Editor Confidentiality and AI Policy

Confidentiality: Editors must treat all submitted manuscripts as highly privileged documents. They must not share, discuss, or use the unpublished data for their own research advantage.
Generative AI: Editors must NOT upload submitted manuscripts or reviewer reports into public AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) to summarize data or draft decision letters, as this breaches confidentiality and author copyright. Editors may use private, enterprise-grade AI tools (which do not retain data for training) to assist in checking language or drafting correspondence, provided human oversight is maintained.

8. Conflicts of Interest and Editorial Independence

Editor COI: Editors must recuse themselves from handling any manuscript where they have a conflict of interest (e.g., recent co-authorship, personal relationship, or direct financial competition with the authors).
Editorial Board Submissions: To maintain absolute transparency, if an Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Board Member submits a paper to Terra Alimentaria, they will be entirely blinded from the review process in OJS. The manuscript will be assigned to a different, independent editor.

9. Handling Ethical Concerns and Misconduct

Editors are the first line of defense against research misconduct. If an editor suspects or is notified of ethical issues (e.g., plagiarism, data fabrication, unauthorized image manipulation, redundant publication, or authorship disputes), they must:

Suspend the peer review or publication process immediately.
Follow the appropriate COPE Flowcharts to investigate the allegation.
Notify the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher (Nusaxis Pustaka Mandiri) to coordinate a response.
Request a formal explanation from the corresponding author.

If misconduct is proven, the editor will coordinate the issuance of a formal Correction, Expression of Concern, or Article Retraction in accordance with the journal's Post-Publication policies.

10. Support and Resources for Editors

Terra Alimentaria and Nusaxis Pustaka Mandiri provide robust support to ensure seamless journal operations for our editorial team:

OJS 3.5 Infrastructure: Advanced digital workflow management from submission to archiving.
Editorial Guidelines: Access to standardized templates, reviewer guidelines, and COPE flowchart toolkits for ethical dispute resolution.
Performance Tracking: Regular updates on journal metrics, indexing status, and workflow efficiency.