Reviewer Guidelines

Role and Responsibilities of Peer Reviewers

Jurnal Pendidikan Islam (JPI) employs a double-blind peer-review process aligned with COPE best practice. Reviewers are expected to provide objective, evidence-based, and constructive assessments that support editorial decisions and improve manuscripts, while maintaining confidentiality, declaring conflicts of interest, and meeting timelines.
  • Critically evaluate manuscripts within your expertise, assessing originality, significance, methodological rigor, ethical compliance (incl. human-participants research), clarity, and overall contribution.
  • Provide specific, constructive feedback for authors and confidential comments for the editor, ending with a reasoned recommendation (accept / minor revision / major revision / reject).
  • Confidentiality: do not share or reuse manuscript content; delete local copies after completing the review.
  • Conflicts of interest: disclose and recuse when appropriate (e.g., recent co-authorship/close collaboration ≤ 36 months, same department/lab, supervisory ties, financial/personal interests).
  • Timeliness: accept/decline invitations within 3–5 days; submit review reports within 60 days per round (or propose an alternative date).
  • Integrity checks: flag suspected plagiarism/overlap, image/data manipulation, inadequate ethics/consent, or inconsistencies with the Data Availability statement.
  • Generative AI: do not upload manuscript text/data to public AI tools; limited use to polish your review report is acceptable without pasting manuscript content and with human verification.
  • Co-reviewing: allowed only with prior editor permission; disclose any co-reviewer to the editor (not to authors).
What to evaluate

1) Fit, originality, and Contribution to the Field
  • Fit to Aims & Scope (RS-grounded, non-devotional, international readership).
  • Clear research gap and question(s); originality beyond incremental results.
  • Explicit “Contribution to the Field” (theoretical/conceptual, methodological, and/or empirical) that is credible and evidence-based.
2) Methodological and ethical rigor
  • Design, sampling, instruments/measures, and analyses are appropriate and sufficiently detailed for replicability; report uncertainty/effect sizes where relevant.
  • Validity/reliability and assumptions are addressed; limitations and potential biases are acknowledged.
  • Human-participants research: ethics approval and informed consent are documented; data protection is described.
  • Research integrity: no plagiarism/duplicate publication, data fabrication/falsification, or image/data manipulation.
3) Results, interpretation, and Research Implications
  • Results are presented clearly (tables/figures necessary and not duplicative of text; statistics correctly reported).
  • Interpretation is logically supported by the evidence and situated within current, relevant literature.
  • Research Implications are explicit and proportionate (e.g., theoretical, practical/pedagogical, or policy).
  • Claims are balanced; alternative explanations considered; scope conditions stated.
4) Structure, clarity, and presentation (section-by-section)
  • Abstract (structured): JPI requires a structured abstract with the subheadings Purpose; Design/methods/approach; Findings; Research implications—concise, accurate, and self-contained.
  • Introduction: significance, literature synthesis, gap, objectives/research questions.
  • Methods: detail sufficient for replication; prior methods cited; Data/Materials/Code Availability stated where applicable.
  • Results & Discussion: coherent narrative; answers the RQs; positions findings against prior work; states limitations and future directions.
  • Conclusion: supported by results; avoids over-generalization; does not duplicate the abstract.
  • References: accurate, complete, current, and internationally scoped; follow the journal style.
  • Figures/Tables: legible, properly labeled, and essential.
5) Transparency and data
  • Data/Materials/Code Availability statement is provided where applicable; repository links work.
  • Third-party content is credited; permissions are identifiable.
How to structure your review report
  1. Brief summary (1–2 paragraphs): what the paper does and its main contributions.
  2. Major comments (numbered): issues affecting validity, contribution, or ethics—what to change and why, and how to address.
  3. Minor comments: clarity, presentation, missing citations, small methodological clarifications.
  4. Confidential comments to the editor (optional): overlap/ethics concerns, recommendation rationale.
  5. Overall recommendation (choose in OJS):
    • Accept Submission (editorial/minor edits only)
    • Revisions Required (minor revision)
    • Resubmit for Review (major revision; likely re-review)
    • Decline Submission (out of scope, fatal flaws, or insufficient contribution)