About the Journal

Focus and Scope Meliora: Journal of Social Sciences, Public Policy, and Development Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to the advancement of human progress, societal structures, and equitable policy. The journal welcomes interdisciplinary research that bridges the gap between social theory and actionable public impact. Focus areas include: Sociology & Social Welfare, Public Administration & Public Policy, Education Policy, Community Development & Empowerment, Philosophy, Ethics, Human Rights, Urban Studies, and Global South Development Studies.

The Journal Editorial Board invites any manuscript addressing a relevant social science or policy topic that employs an established and recognized scholarly approach and also impacts or is generalizable to national and international populations. Quantitative research reports that employ sophisticated research designs (e.g., MANOVAs, linear modeling) and qualitative research reports that rigorously follow naturalistic research methods are preferred. One or two variable tests employing simple inferential statistics (e.g., ANOVA or ANCOVA) and poorly described and argued qualitative research are discouraged. All manuscripts must provide a thorough review of the literature that establishes the research problem or the issue at hand as well as a thorough conclusion that addresses the implications and limitations of the research or argument.

Peer Review Process All manuscripts submitted to this journal must follow focus and scope, and author guidelines of this journal. The submitted manuscripts must address scientific merit or novelty appropriate to the focus and scope. All manuscripts must be free from plagiarism contents. All authors are suggested to use plagiarism detection software to do the similarity checking. Editors check the plagiarism detection of articles in this journal by using Turnitin software.

The research article submitted to this journal will be double-blind reviewed by at least 2 (two) or more expert reviewers. The reviewers give scientific valuable comments improving the contents of the manuscript.

Final decision of articles acceptance will be made by Editors according to reviewers' comments. Publication of accepted articles including the sequence of published articles will be made by Editor in Chief by considering sequence of accepted date and geographical distribution of authors as well as thematic issue.

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.

This journal is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to full text articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement Our Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement are based on COPEs Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. As such, this journal follows the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers.

Duties of Editors

Fair play and editorial independence: Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts exclusively on the basis of their academic merit (importance, originality, study's validity, clarity) and its relevance to the journal's scope, without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, citizenship, religious belief, political philosophy or institutional affiliation. Decisions to edit and publish are not determined by the policies of governments or any other agencies outside of the journal itself. The Editor-in-Chief has full authority over the entire editorial content of the journal and the timing of publication of that content.
Confidentiality: Editors and editorial staff will 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: Editors and editorial board members will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors' explicit written consent. Privileged information or ideas obtained by editors as a result of handling the manuscript will be kept confidential and not used for their personal advantage. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest.
Publication decisions: The editors ensure that all submitted manuscripts being considered for publication undergo peer-review by at least two reviewers who are expert in the field. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts submitted to the journal will be published.
Involvement and cooperation in investigations: Editors will take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised with regard to a submitted manuscript or published paper. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour will be looked into.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to editorial decisions: Peer review assists editors in making editorial decisions and may assist authors in improving their manuscripts.
Promptness: Any invited referee who feels unqualified to review the research or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should immediately notify the editors and decline the invitation.
Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such.
Standards of objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively and observations formulated clearly with supporting arguments. Personal criticism of the authors is inappropriate.
Acknowledgement of sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Any invited referee who has conflicts of interest should immediately notify the editors to declare their conflicts of interest and decline the invitation to review.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards: Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed and the results, followed by an objective discussion of the significance of the work.
Data access and retention: Authors may be asked to provide the raw data of their study together with the manuscript for editorial review and should be prepared to make the data publicly available if practicable.
Originality and plagiarism: Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
Multiple, duplicate, redundant or concurrent submission/publication: Papers describing essentially the same research should not be published in more than one journal.
Authorship of the manuscript: Only persons who meet authorship criteria should be listed as authors in the manuscript (made significant contributions, drafted/revised, approved final version).
Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Authors should disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript.
Acknowledgement of sources: Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others.
Hazards and human or animal subjects: Authors must clearly identify hazards and ensure all procedures involving human or animal subjects comply with relevant laws and institutional guidelines.
Peer review: Authors are obliged to participate in the peer review process and cooperate fully by responding promptly to editors' requests.
Fundamental errors in published works: When authors discover significant errors in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal's editors or publisher and cooperate to correct or retract the paper.

Duties of the Publisher

Handling of unethical publishing behaviour: In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to clarify the situation and amend the article in question.
Access to journal content: The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research.

Section A: Publication and authorship

All submitted papers are subject to strict peer-review process by at least two international reviewers.
Review process is blind peer review.
The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection.
Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
No research can be included in more than one publication.

Section B: Authors’ responsibilities

Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work, not previously published, and not currently being considered elsewhere.
Authors must participate in the peer review process.
Authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.

Section C: Reviewers’ responsibilities

Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential.
Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.

Section D: Editors’ responsibilities

Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.

Author Guidelines The manuscript texts are written in English or Indonesia. Manuscripts will be first reviewed by editorial boards. The main text of a manuscript must be submitted as a Word document {.doc} or Rich Text Format {.rtf} file. The manuscript consists of 5000 words {minimum}, well-typed in single column on A4 size paper, use 12 pt of Times New Roman. The manuscript contains an original work and has potentially contributed to the highly scientific advancement.

The manuscript should contain the following section in this order: a. Title: Title of articles in English should describe the main content of manuscripts, be informative, concise, and not too wordy {12-15 words only}, and does not contain formulas. b. The authors name: Full name without academic degrees and titles, written in capital letters. Manuscript written by groups needs to be supplemented by complete contact details. c. Name of affiliation for each author: The author name should be accompanied by complete affiliation address, postal code number, telephone number and email address. d. Abstract: Written briefly in English in one paragraph of 150-200 words, containing background, research objectives, methodology, results, conclusion of the study and your research contributions to science. e. Keywords: Written in English 3-5 words or groups of words, written alphabetically. f. Introduction: Explaining the background, problems, importance of research, brief literature review that relates directly to research or previous findings that need to be developed, and ended with a paragraph of research purposes. The introduction is presented in the form of paragraphs of approximately 1000 words. g. Methods: Make sure that work can be repeated according to the details provided. Approaches or procedures of study together with data analysis methods must be presented. h. Results and Discussion: Well-prepared tables and or figures must be of significant feature of this section. Same data can not be presented in the form of tables and figures. i. Conclusion: Conclusion should be withdrawn on the basis of research findings, formulated concerns and research purposes. Conclusion is presented in one paragraph without numerical form of expression. j. Acknowledgement: Contributors who are not mentioned as authors should be acknowledged, and their particular contribution should be described. All sources of funding for the work must be acknowledged. k. References: Manuscripts are written by using standard citation application {Mendeley/Endnote/Zotero}. APA {American Psychological Association} reference style is required.

Publication Frequency This journal is published biannually in May and November.

Copyright Notice Authors agree to transfer the copyright of the article to the journal upon publication. The journal then holds the copyright for the published version of the article. All published articles are made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction, and adaptation in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Author Fees This journal charges the following author fees:

Article Submission (FREE): 0,00 (IDR) Authors are free to pay an Article Submission Fee as part of the submission process to contribute to review costs.
Article Publication: 2.500.000,00 (IDR) If this paper is accepted for publication, you must pay an Article Publication Fee to cover publication costs.

Policy on the use of GenAI This policy outlines the journal's stance on the ethical and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence {AI} and AI-assisted technologies.

Authorship and Accountability: AI cannot be an Author. Authors remain fully responsible and accountable for the entire content of their submitted manuscript. The use of AI tools must be under direct human supervision.
Transparency and Disclosure: Authors are required to disclose the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies in the preparation of their manuscript (e.g., in the Acknowledgements or Methods section).
Permissible Uses {with Disclosure}: Language and Grammar Refinement, Drafting Support for non-research-critical sections, Brainstorming, and Summarization of Literature.
Prohibited Uses: Generating Fictitious Content, Plagiarism, Substituting for Human Intellectual Contribution, Violating Confidentiality, and Misrepresenting Research.
Consequences of Misuse: Failure to adhere to this policy will result in rejection, retraction, or banning of the author from future submissions