Senior Researcher Pan M. Faiz talking about Constitutional Review’s journey toward Scopus indexing at a workshop by the Constitutional Court and APJHI in Malang, Saturday (6/4/2021). Photo by Humas MK/Hamdi.
Sunday, June 5, 2022 | 10:01 WIB
JAKARTA, Public Relations—The reason for publishing ConsRev (Constitutional Review) in 2015 was inseparable from the efforts to strengthen the capacity and capability of the Constitutional Court’s researchers to improve the quality of the Constitutional Court decisions. In addition, that year, the Constitutional Court had a central role internationally, for example, as a permanent secretariat of the AACC in Jakarta. In addition, in October 2022, the Court will host a congress of the World Conference on Constitutional Justice (WCCJ). Thus, the Court saw the need to produce quality academic journals for the event.
The statement was made by Pan Mohamad Faiz, Senior Researcher of the Constitutional Court and Editor-in-Chief of ConsRev of the Constitutional Court on the second day of the workshop on ““The Management and Writing of Nationally Accredited and Globally Indexed Academic Journals,” which was organized by the Court in collaboration with the Association of Indonesian Legal Journal Management (APJHI) on Saturday, June 4, 2022 in Malang, East Java.
At the beginning of his involvement in ConsRev, Faiz admitted that he had not known much about Scopus. Then the Secretary-General of the Constitutional Court M. Guntur Hamzah, who had experience writing academic articles, as well as other officials of the Court gave their full support. He revealed that there were common insufficiencies faced by journal managers, both in institutions and organizations, such as in terms of commitment among the leadership, personnel, interest, funds, texts, and partners.
“Before 2017, the Court also experienced these things, so it then tried to find out how ConsRev could be indexed by Scopus through improvement strategies that began in 2017. Among them, reconstructing the journal management; recruiting full staff, if you don’t have free time then it’s time to find a staff; website evaluation by completing design, editorial, and OJS; adding international reviewers; adding articles by holding international conferences/symposiums,” said Faiz explaining his experience in managing through the Constitutional Review (ConsRev), the Constitutional Court journal that was indexed with Scopus since September 2, 2021.
At the workshop, Faiz also shared his experience of obtaining articles by holding the Indonesian Constitutional Court International Symposium (ICCIS), which are then selected in stages until they could be published in ConsRev. In addition, the Court has also held competitions to recruit academic writers to form a database of articles. Not all of the articles could be published after assessment and reading by reviewers because the Court sought high quality and diversification.
“So, after six months, the Court was finally able be Scopus-indexed, but after achieving this it tried to maintain and improve it. One of them is by increasing SJR (Scimago Journal Ranking Q4 to Q1); achieving Sinta-1 accreditation with BRIN-RistekDIKTI [(the National Research and Innovation Agency-Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education)]; adding new segments with book review and dissemination of Court decisions; and so on. They were done so that the Court could maintain this achievement by expanding its membership and maintaining the passion among journal managers by keeping the rhythm for future targets,” Faiz explained.
Technical Training
Both online and onsite participants listened to a presentation on “Technical Training on Open Journal System (OJS) Management” by Mochammad Tanzil Multazam, Indonesian journal volunteer and APJHI Certification Coordinator where they were introduced to the technicalities of managing OJS, such as settings related to article metadata, copyright licenses, time limits for article processing, editorial process flow before articles are sent, etc.
“Journals are magazines but academic in nature, so there are rubrics that can be divided into focuses such as science, social, law, and others, and there are technical matters to take into account, such as the utilization of the business process flow of the articles to be sent. Within it, there is discussion between the reviewer and the author through the system round or review discussion,” Tanzil explained.
Quality of Constitutional Court Decisions
While closing the workshop, the Head of the Center for Research, Case Review, and Library Management Kurniasih Panti Rahayu said it would help academic journals managers carve out their respective careers. For the Court itself, the event would improve the legal references to improve the quality of its decisions. Legal articles published in journals can be source materials for the Court on legal practice in Indonesia.
“In the future we can still carry out academic development through journals, public lectures, and so on so that the Constitutional Court can still achieve success in managing its journals and we can also continue to grow along with APJHI members to further improve academic journals that are accredited nationally and indexed globally,” she explained.
This second day of the workshop consisted of the fourth session under the theme “The Management of the Open Journal System (OJS),” in which with two topics were presented: “Technical Training on the Management of the Open Journal System (OJS)” delivered by Mochammad Tanzil Multazam and “Review, Layout, and Editing Process in Legal Journals” by the Deputy Chairperson of APJHI Kukuh Tedjomurti. In the fifth session, a presentation on “Success Stories and Tips for Managing Indonesian Legal Journals towards International Reputation/Scopus” was delivered by the Editor-in-Chief of Constitutional Review Pan Mohamad Faiz and the Managing Editor of Hasanuddin Law Review Ahsan Yunus.
The workshop, aimed at improving the synergy in the management of globally-indexed academic journals, was attended by 33 onsite participants and 130 online participants, consisting of managers of academic journals at universities/institutions and researchers and lecturers from universities in East Java Province and its surroundings, including Jember, Sidoarjo, Surabaya, and Madura. It should hopefully form among the participants a good understanding of the management a good legal journal so that it can be nationally accredited and globally indexed, learn the guidelines of academic journal accreditation, and improve their ability to write articles for international legal journals in accordance with good and correct academic writing guidelines.
Writer : Sri Pujianti
Editor : Lulu Anjarsari P.
Translator : Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)
Translation uploaded on 6/7/2021 10:47 WIB
Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian version, the Indonesian version will prevail.
Sunday, June 05, 2022 | 10:01 WIB 199