About the Journal
Focus and Scope
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra publishes original research between theoretical and practical studies on current issues in linguistics, literature, and language teaching. It especially welcomes perspectives from ASEAN and Southeast Asian communities and across the globe. The journal welcomes contributions in such areas of current analysis in:
- LINGUISTICS
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Phonetic
- Phonology
- Semantics
- Pragmatics
- Psycholinguistics
- Sociolinguistics
- Applied Linguistics
- Conversation Analysis
- Stylistics
- LITERATURE
- Literary Theory
- Discourse Analysis
- Formalism
- New Criticism
- Structuralism
- Post-Structuralism
- Gender Studies
- Reception Theory
- Comparative Theory
- Narrative Theory
- Fiction Studies
- LANGUAGE TEACHING
- New Trends in Language Teaching
- Methods in Language Teaching
- Second Language Learning
- Foreign Language Learning
- Curriculum Design and Development
- Language Planning and Language Testing
- Multilingual Education
Peer Review Process
The manuscript submitted to OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra will be undergone a double-blind review by reviewers. The paper is sent to many reviewers (the experts in the respective field) to review the paper in the light of journal's guidelines and features of a quality research paper. For papers that require changes, the same reviewers will be used to ensure that the quality of the revised paper is acceptable.
The journal follows a systematic review and publication policy:
- STEP-1: The submitted manuscript is acknowledged within 12-24 hours upon receipt;
- STEP-2: The manuscript is assigned to the editor. It is conducted to ensure the manuscript meets the basic parameters (The aims and scope, the author guidelines, and the template);
- STEP-3: The manuscript that passes the initial assessment is then examined by the editor;
- STEP-4: The editor decides whether it is "desk rejected" without additional review or sends it (without the name and affiliations of the author(s)) to many external reviewers for an independent peer reviewer;
- STEP-5: The reviewers produce a detailed review report which then communicates their expert opinion back to the editor;
- STEP-6: The editor draws from the recommendations to make decision and advises the corresponding author of the outcome;
- STEP-7: The manuscript accepted with minor or major revisions should be revised as the reviewers’ comments and suggestions;
- STEP-8: The editor will send the review reports to the author/corresponding author including a formal request to modify the paper by (7 days to 15 days) as per the suggestions of the reviewers. The author will send the revised manuscript to the editor, and the editor will send it to the same reviewers of the said paper to justify the modifications. If the paper is again returned by the reviewers, the paper is said to be finally rejected. The journal will not proceed with the said paper. However, in the case of very minor changes, the editorial board may consider the paper for further modifications;
- STEP-9: Once the editor is satisfied that the revised paper is suitable for publication, or that the authors will be unable to make the necessary changes for whatever reasons, a final decision of "ACCEPT" or "REJECT" can be made.
- STEP-10: The accepted paper is processed for publication (soft copy) upon the successful completion of the Journal's terms and conditions;
- STEP-11: Proof Reading. The executive editor will send the processed paper for publication (MS Word) to the author/Corresponding author for proofreading;
- STEP-12: The paper is published online first. The executive editor will notify the author/corresponding author about online publication with a necessary download link. The author/corresponding author may request for any correction in the published paper (in the case of extremely important changes) within one week of online publication;
- STEP-13: The journal is published in print within one until two weeks of online publication;
- STEP-14: The executive editor will ask the authors of the published papers to send their correct and complete mailing address (with proper ZIP Code and postal code) by one week after print publication;
- STEP-15: The executive editor will send the hard copy of the OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra if possible to the authors within one or two months after print publication.
Publication Frequency
OKARA Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra or Journal of Languages and Literature published twice a year, the first publication will be in May and the second publication in November, each of issue will be published around (8-11) articles.
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.
Publication Ethics
Our ethic statements are based on COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.
Ethical Guideline for Journal Publication
The publication of an article in a peer-reviewed OKARA is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society.
Central of Language Development of Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Madura as publisher of OKARA takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing seriously and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities. We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.
Publication decisions
The editor of the OKARA 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 evaluates manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or ideology 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.
Acknowledgment 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.
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.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts 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
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. This includes the prompt publication of an erratum, clarification, or, in the most severe case, the retraction of the affected work. The publisher, together with the editors, shall take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place.
Access to journal content
The publisher is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our own digital archive.
Article Withdrawal
Article Withdrawal
Only used for Articles in Press that represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like. Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published articles (s) or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors, maybe “Withdrawn” from OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra. Withdrawn means that the article content (HTML and PDF) is removed and replaced with an HTML page and PDF simply stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra Policy on Article in Press Withdrawal with a link to the current policy document.
Article Retraction
Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like. Occasionally a retraction will be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The retraction of an article by its authors or the editor under the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this best practice is adopted for article retraction by Elsevier.
- A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list;
- In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article;
- The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself;
- The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the .pdf indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”;
- The HTML version of the document is removed;
Article Removal: Legal Limitations
In an extremely limited number of cases, it may be necessary to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the article is, or we have good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In these circumstances, while the metadata (Title and Authors) will be retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating the article has been removed for legal reasons.
Article Replacement
In cases where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk, the authors of the original article may wish to retract the flawed original and replace it with a corrected version. In these circumstances the procedures for retraction will be followed with the difference that the database retraction notice will publish a link to the corrected re-published article and a history of the document.
Copyright Notice
The journal operates an Open Access policy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
Publication Fee
OKARA Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra does not charge authors fees for article submissions, processing, and publication.
Journal History
Following the transformation of the institution from STAIN Pamekasan to IAIN Madura, starting from Volume 13, Number 1, 2019, the journal's URL migrated from http://ejournal.stainpamekasan.ac.id/index.php/okara/index to http://ejournal.iainmadura.ac.id/index.php/okara. In this cycle, the journal was first accredited "SINTA 3" by the Ministry of Research Technology and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia on 27 August 2019. To achieve a higher accreditation level, in 2020, OKARA's editorial team decided to comply with a new template by putting the additional article details in the text body.
By 4 April 2020, OKARA started to collaborate with ELITE Association Indonesia. It is an association of English lecturers of Islamic higher education within the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia.
In February 2021, the journal website upgraded from Open Journal System 2.1.1.8. version to Open Journal System 3.1.2.4. version. The journal's appearance was also improved with a black and yellow dominated color to show the journal characteristic.
Finally, dated 25 January 2021, the journal was accredited SINTA 2 or "Rank 2" as a scientific journal under the Decree No. 164/E/KPT/2021 of the Directorate General of Higher Education, Research and Technology, Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology. Effective five years from Vol. 15, No. 2, November 2021, until Vol. 19, No. 2, November 2025.