Focus and Scope

JURNAL PENGEMBANGAN KOTA/ JPK (ISSN: 2337-7062) provides a forum for publishing the original research articles, review articles, and short communication articles related to urban studies and development.

This journal encompasses original research articles, review articles, and short communications, including:

• Human settlement;
• Urban transportation;
• Urban tourism;
• Disaster management;
• Urban environmental;
• Urban sociology;

Section Policies

ARTICLES

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process / Policy

Every manuscript submitted to Jurnal Pengembangan Kotawill be peer reviewed by two referees/reviewers. The mechanism is double blind. The manuscript will be made anonym for the reviewers, and so are the reviewers for the author/s. The final decision is made by the editorial board based on the review results.

Publication Frequency

Journal Pengembangan Kota a scientific journal in the field of urban studies and development. Published every 6 months in July 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...

Indexing and Abstracting

Publication Ethics

Publication decisions
The editor of the JURNAL PENGEMBANGAN KOTA/ JPK is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editors may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editors may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair play

An editor at any time evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions. Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness. Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality. Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity. Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards. Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Data Access and Retention. Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism. The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication. An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Sources. Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

Authorship of the Paper. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects. If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest. All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Fundamental errors in published works. When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Plagiarism Screening

Manuscripts submitted to JURNAL PENGEMBANGAN KOTA/JPK will be screened for plagiarism and self-plagiarism using turnitin.com, Google-based search engines, journals databases, and other online plagiarism detection tools. Depending on the level of originality and similarities with other documents, the managing editor will decide on whether to immediately reject the manuscripts, contact authors for further clarifications, or to proceed to the peer-review process.

Review Guidelines

Introduction

JPK’s External Review Board is a collegiate body whose fundamental role is to maintain this scientific journal’s high standards of excellence by blind peer review –based exclusively on the quality of the content of the manuscripts and performed by experts whose prestige in the field is internationally recognized –which is the best guarantee for scientific progress and to keep this journal’s original and valuable scientific work in the forefront.

The review of manuscripts by national and international experts is the key to selecting those articles that will have the greatest impact on the scientific community. This review process also provides the authors with an objective report on the strong and weak points of their manuscripts once accepted for peer review.

All the reviews carried out for JPK are based on the standardized international double blind peer review system that ensures author and reviewer anonymity. 

JPK Review Board consists of a group of nastional/international experts in various subjects with no professional relation with the journal’s editorial board. They can be members of the Scientific, Advisory or Technical Boards but their independence and anonymity is guaranteed when acting as manuscript referees. Once a year, the journal publishes a full list of its reviewers on its official website

Criteria for accepting/rejecting reviewed manuscripts

JPK requests the collaboration of the external reviewers in order to facilitate the communication with the authors of the manuscripts. In any case, the acceptance of the manuscripts must be linked to: 

• Knowledge of and academic experience in the subject of the manuscript. Invitation to a reviewer necessarily means he / she has a firm grasp of the subject of the article. 
• Availability. Reviewing an article requires dedicating time and thought to evaluating the manuscript
• Conflict of interest. A conflict of interest can occur as a result of proximity or hostility to the authors if the reviewer identifies the authors even though their names have been removed from the manuscript. Referees must declare any conflict of interest and reject the editors’ invitation to evaluate a manuscript when, for instance, they identify the authorship of the manuscript, are academically or familiarly close to the authors, belong to the same university, department, research group, professional network, research project as the author or has published articles with the author, …or any other type of connection or conflict / professional proximity.  In this case the reviewer must decline the offer from the editor to review the article. The authors can inform the journal via the platform to say which researchers might have a conflict of interest with their submission; reviewers must do likewise.
• A commitment to confidentiality. The reviewer must maintain strict confidentiality when assessing a manuscript and must not divulge its content to third parties. If the reviewer wishes to get a second opinion on the article, he / she must consult the editor, whose approval is necessary for the manuscript to be viewed by a second referee. The editors welcome these additional comments provided that strict confidentiality is maintained throughout the entire review process. These additional evaluations and recommendations will help the editors make a final decision on the manuscript.

The task of reviewer

As a peer reviewer, the task of the External Reviewer is to provide a constructive, critical analysis of the manuscript content, to collaborate with the general editors and the subject editors in checking / ratifying whether the work is of high scientific value and complies with this journal’s standards of excellence in order to be accepted and edited.

The opinion of the reviewers is vital for detecting content originality and excellence that is presented in a clear and concise way.

The reviewers will provide a general assessment of the «impact priority» remarking on the probability of the article having a strong and lasting influence on the research areasthat interest the journal. 

General criteria for the review of manuscripts

• Subject. For the central theme of the article to be relevant and of scientific value it must be both specific (detailed in a local context without being parochial) and of broader interest to the international scientific community.
• Style. The reviewer’s report of the critical evaluation of the manuscript must be written in an objective style using quotes directly from the text submitted or citing references of interest in order to support his / her argument. 
• Originality. Originality and suitability are essential criteria for the manuscript to be selected for our journal.
• Structure. The manuscripts should include the main elements of an academic journal: summary/abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusions.

Review criteria

JPK’s reviewers must carry out a thorough analysis of the manuscript, contrasting the information presented, checking the scientific literature used to support the document and present a quantitative and qualitative report to the editors on the suitability of the work for publication. For this purpose, they will use the evaluation sheet with the following aspects:

1. Title, abstract and keywords (quality and structure)
2. Relevance of the subject
3. Originality of the paper
4. Literature review. Relevance of references. Currency of the literature review.
5. Structure and organization. Scientific writing
6. Scientific and methodological rigor
7. Data interpretation and analysis
8. Originality. Conclusions
9. Overall assessment

Ethical issues

If a reviewer considers that the article is a substantial copy of another work, they should notify the Editors, providing detailed citations of the previous work.

If there is a real or remote suspicion that the article results are false or fraudulent, reviewers must notify the Editors.

Report to the Editors

Reviewers’ comments should be respectful and constructive, and they should not include personal data. In this sense, the partial assessments regarding some content and formal aspects should consider the following evaluation criteria:

Content aspects:

• Degree of interest and topicality of the subject.
• Relevance and how up‐to‐date the sources are.
• Clear and interesting theoretical proposition.
• Clarity in the presentation of the work’s objectives.
• Adequacy of the methodological design in relation to the work’s objectives.
• Relevance and correction of data analysis procedures (if appropriate).
• Interesting empirical data provided (if appropriate).
• Interesting and relevant discussion, results and conclusions.
• Interesting and relevant from a professional didactic viewpoint 

Formal aspects:

• Organization and structure.
• Well-balanced extension of sections and adequate content.
• Writing and style.
• Presentation of tables and figures.
• Bibliographic references (APA norms apply, with citations in the text matching the reference in the list at the end of the text).

Categories of classification of a manuscript

The categories that «JPK» uses to classify a reviewed manuscript are:

1. Accept Submission: The article is suitable for publication in its present form.
2. Revision Required: Any required changes are minor; the editor will verify that the author made the recommended changes.
3. Resubmit for Review: The article is acceptable for publication provided that significant changes are made, as indicated by the comments below.  The revision should be re-reviewed.  
4. Resubmit for Elsewhere: The article is better suited for another journal.
5. Decline Submission: This article is not suitable for publication in JPK. 
6. See Comments: The reviewer cannot choose from any of the above. 

Manuscript Evaluatian Protokol for Reviewer

Manuscript Evaluatian Protokol for editor

Accreditation and Quality Assurance

Jurnal Pengembangan kota/ JPK publishes high-quality original research, comment, and correspondence that can advance urban development policy and outcomes. Wherever possible, figures and good quality photographs (colour or black and white) should be used to supplement and to enhance the text.

Quality is the basis and core of sustainable scholarly publishing. From submission to publication, JPK implements a standardized editorial process and comprehensive quality control procedures. All articles, except Editorial or Book Review, published in JPK undergo rigorous pre-check, peer review and editorial decision. Editorial and Book Review are checked by Editor-in-Chief or one Editorial Board member instead of standard peer review.

Though being rigid in process and strict in quality, we aim to provide a friendly, fluent and fast service to authors. Authors have a number of opportunities to submit rebuttals against review comments or editorial decision.

In order to make sure the quality of each article and review process, teams at JPK follow the guidelines of journal accreditation issued by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education. Here is the list of JPK's accreditation:

• 2022 - 2026: Accredited Sinta 2, download the certificate
• 2018 - 2022: Accredited Sinta 2, download the certificate
• 2017 - 2020: Accredited Sinta 3, download the certificate

Misconduct, Correction, & Retraction Policy

Referee Misconduct

Referee misconduct refers to any inappropriate, unethical, or unprofessional conduct committed by reviewers during the peer-review process. Such misconduct may range from relatively minor concerns, such as rude, biased, delayed, or unconstructive reviews, to more serious violations, including the misuse of confidential information, breach of anonymity, undeclared conflicts of interest, or the appropriation of an author’s ideas, data, arguments, or research findings.

Jurnal Pengembangan kota recognizes that reviewers hold a position of considerable trust and responsibility within the scholarly publication process. Reviewers are granted access to privileged and unpublished research materials, and their assessments may significantly influence editorial decisions. Therefore, the journal expects all reviewers to uphold the highest standards of confidentiality, integrity, objectivity, fairness, and professionalism.

The journal maintains a clear complaint-handling procedure for addressing allegations of reviewer misconduct. Complaints may be submitted by authors, editors, or other parties who identify possible misconduct during or after the review process. All complaints will be considered carefully and handled in accordance with the principles of fairness, confidentiality, and due process.

For minor forms of misconduct, such as inappropriate language, discourteous comments, excessive delays, or reviews that lack constructive academic value, the editorial team may remove offensive or irrelevant comments from the review report before forwarding it to the author. Reviewers who repeatedly submit poor-quality, late, biased, or unprofessional reviews may be removed from the journal’s reviewer database and will not be invited to review future manuscripts.

For serious allegations, including the suspected misuse of unpublished data, plagiarism of ideas, breach of confidentiality, or conflicts of interest that were not disclosed, the Editor-in-Chief may initiate a formal investigation. This may involve reviewing the relevant correspondence, consulting associate editors, requesting clarification from the reviewer concerned, and, where necessary, referring the matter to the reviewer’s institution or relevant ethical body. Appropriate actions will be taken based on the severity of the misconduct and the evidence available.

Corrections to Published Articles

Jurnal Pengembangan kota acknowledges that honest errors may occur in scientific research and scholarly publishing. When such errors are identified after publication, and when they do not invalidate the overall findings or conclusions of the article, the journal may issue a correction notice.

Authors are expected to promptly inform the Editor-in-Chief if they discover or are informed of factual errors, inaccuracies, or omissions in their published article. Corrections may also be initiated by editors, readers, or other parties when a substantive error is identified. The decision to publish a correction rests with the editorial team, based on the nature and significance of the error.

A correction notice will be published in the next available online issue of the journal. The online version of the article will be linked to the correction notice, and the correction notice will likewise be linked to the original article. Where applicable, correction notices will be indexed and connected to the original publication record in relevant indexing databases and repositories.

Retractions

Retractions are issued when there is clear evidence that the findings or conclusions of a published article are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct or honest error. Jurnal Pengembangan kota may consider retraction in cases involving, but not limited to, fabricated or falsified data, plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, unethical research practices, serious methodological flaws, unauthorized use of data, or other violations of publication ethics.

When concerns about an article are under investigation, but the evidence is not yet conclusive, the journal may publish an expression of concern. This notice informs readers that the integrity or reliability of the article is being examined while the investigation is ongoing.

All retraction notices will clearly state the reason for the retraction and, where appropriate, identify who is initiating it. Retraction notices will be published online and linked to the original article. When an article has already been included in a journal issue, the original article record will be retained to preserve the scholarly record. However, the article will be clearly marked as retracted. The PDF version may be replaced or watermarked with the phrase “Retracted Version” to ensure that readers are aware of its status.

In exceptional cases, such as those involving legal concerns, privacy violations, defamatory content, or risks of serious harm, the journal may remove the full text of the article from public access. In such circumstances, the article metadata, including the title and author information, will normally remain available, accompanied by a notice explaining that the article has been removed for legal or ethical reasons.

Retraction notices will be indexed, where possible, and linked to the original publication record in relevant databases, repositories, and indexing services. The purpose of retraction is not to punish authors, but to correct the scholarly record and maintain the integrity, transparency, and reliability of academic publishing.

Through these procedures, Jurnal Pengembangan kota reaffirms its commitment to ethical peer review, responsible editorial practice, and the preservation of academic integrity in scholarly communication.

Post Publication Discussion and Corrections

Jurnal Pengembangan Kota accepts discussions and corrections of published articles from readers. Readers who wish to submit a discussion or correction should contact the Editor-in-Chief via email, clearly explaining their comments. If accepted by the Editor-in-Chief, the discussion or correction will be published in the next issue as a Letter to the Editor. Authors may respond to such discussions or corrections by sending a reply to the Editor-in-Chief, which may be published as a Reply to the Letter to the Editor.

Post-publication corrections and amendments will be conducted with appropriate reference and careful scientific consideration. Once an article has been published, making replacements or issuing retractions requires significant effort and must be accompanied by proper explanations for the indexing databases. Therefore, authors are strongly advised to carefully check the final draft of their manuscript before publication.