Correction &
Retraction Policy.

Konsienti: Community Services Journal recognizes its responsibility to ensure that published community service scholarship remains accurate, reliable, ethically reported, and appropriately documented. Post-publication correction and retraction procedures are essential components of responsible scholarly communication.

This policy applies to original community service articles, review articles, community case studies, methodological and program development articles, and other scholarly content officially published by the journal.

Concerns may be raised by authors, editors, reviewers, readers, research institutions, community partners, program beneficiaries, or other individuals who identify potential errors or integrity problems in published content.

The Editorial Team evaluates each concern according to its nature, available evidence, potential implications for published findings and community service outcomes, and relevant editorial and ethical standards.

EDITORIAL ACTION / CORRECTION

What Is a Correction?

A Correction is a formal editorial notice intended to amend errors, omissions, or inaccurate statements in a published article when these problems can be resolved without invalidating its principal findings, conclusions, or reported community service contributions.

Corrections may be initiated by authors, editors, readers, community partners, or other relevant parties and are subject to editorial verification. The original article ordinarily remains available, accompanied by appropriate documentation and a link to any formal correction notice.

A. Minor Corrections

Minor corrections address typographical, formatting, bibliographic, or production errors that do not materially change the academic meaning or community service findings.

The Editorial Team determines whether a minor correction requires a formal notice or may be addressed through a documented technical update.

B. Substantive Corrections

Substantive corrections address errors that affect readers' understanding of particular aspects of the published program or evaluation but do not undermine the overall reliability of its principal outcomes.

Publication of Correction Notices

A formal correction notice should identify the original article, describe the error, explain the correction, and state whether the principal results or conclusions are affected.

Where appropriate, the notice should be freely accessible and linked to the original article. Significant changes should be reflected consistently in the journal website, full-text files, and relevant publication metadata.

EDITORIAL ACTION / RETRACTION

What Is a Retraction?

A Retraction is a formal editorial action that alerts readers when a published article contains serious problems compromising the reliability of its findings, conclusions, or reported community service outcomes, or when significant publication ethics violations warrant withdrawal of confidence in the publication.

Retraction does not ordinarily involve deleting an article from the scholarly record. The article should remain identifiable, clearly marked as retracted, and linked to an explanatory notice. Retraction may be warranted because of serious honest error or research misconduct.

Grounds for Considering Retraction

Retraction Is Not an Automatic Penalty

Not every reporting error, authorship dispute, similarity finding, or undisclosed interest warrants retraction. The Editorial Team must consider the seriousness of the problem, the reliability of the findings, available evidence, and whether correction or another editorial measure would be sufficient.

Information Required in a Retraction Notice

An Expression of Concern is a formal editorial notice used when credible and potentially serious questions have arisen regarding a published article, but the available evidence is insufficient to justify a definitive correction or retraction.

The notice alerts readers to unresolved concerns while allowing appropriate evaluation, clarification, or institutional investigation to continue.

Circumstances That May Warrant an Expression of Concern

The publication of an Expression of Concern does not constitute a finding of misconduct. The notice may later be updated, resolved, replaced by a correction or retraction, or followed by another appropriate editorial action.

Manuscript Withdrawal refers to the discontinuation of editorial consideration of a manuscript before publication. A withdrawn manuscript has not entered the journal's published scholarly record.

Authors wishing to withdraw a manuscript should submit a formal written request to the Editorial Office, identifying the manuscript and explaining the reasons for withdrawal.

Withdrawal requests may arise because of serious reporting errors, problems with program documentation, ethical concerns, authorship issues, or other legitimate considerations. Requests are evaluated according to the manuscript's editorial status and applicable policies.

Withdrawal Request Procedure

01. The corresponding author submits a formal withdrawal request through the journal's official communication channel.

02. The request includes the manuscript title, submission ID, author names, and reasons for withdrawal.

03. The corresponding author confirms that all co-authors have been informed and agree to the request.

04. The Editorial Team reviews the request and any relevant ethical or administrative concerns.

05. The journal communicates the outcome and updates the manuscript's editorial status where appropriate.

Important Distinction

An accepted but unpublished manuscript is not automatically treated as a retracted article. Once an article has been formally published online, including publication ahead of issue assignment, post-publication editorial procedures ordinarily apply instead of routine withdrawal.

Fairness and Editorial Independence

The journal should address concerns objectively and without unnecessary delay. Individuals involved in the assessment must disclose relevant competing interests and should not participate in decisions where their impartiality may reasonably be questioned.

Formal correction, retraction, and Expression of Concern notices should provide sufficient information for readers to understand the issue, the editorial response, and the status of the original publication.

Where appropriate, editorial notices should be separately identifiable, freely accessible, and linked to the original published article. Reciprocal linking should also be provided where feasible.

ILLUSTRATIVE TEMPLATE / CORRECTION NOTICE

Correction to: [Original Article Title]

"This notice corrects an error identified in the previously published article entitled [Article Title], authored by [Author Names], DOI: [DOI]. The correction concerns [Description of Error]. The corrected information is [Description of Correction]. The principal findings and conclusions of the article remain unchanged."

ILLUSTRATIVE TEMPLATE / RETRACTION NOTICE

Retraction: [Original Article Title]

"The Editorial Team of Konsienti: Community Services Journal has retracted the article entitled [Article Title], authored by [Author Names], DOI: [DOI]. The retraction follows an editorial assessment concerning [Factual Explanation of the Issue]. The identified problems materially affect the reliability or integrity of the publication. The article remains identifiable in the journal archive and is clearly marked as retracted."

ILLUSTRATIVE TEMPLATE / EXPRESSION OF CONCERN

Expression of Concern: [Original Article Title]

"The Editorial Team wishes to inform readers that concerns have been raised regarding [Description of Concern] in the article entitled [Article Title], DOI: [DOI]. The relevant matters remain under assessment, and no final determination has been reached. Further information or appropriate editorial action will be provided when sufficient evidence becomes available."

Important: These templates are illustrative. Actual editorial notices must accurately reflect the circumstances, findings, and responsible decision-making authority. Notices must not present unconfirmed allegations as established misconduct.

Preservation of Retracted Articles

Retracted articles should ordinarily remain accessible in the journal's digital archive to preserve the historical record of scholarly publishing. Their retracted status should be clearly displayed on the article landing page and, where technically feasible, within full-text files.

A prominent RETRACTED label or watermark may be used to identify the article's status. The formal retraction notice should remain accessible and linked to the original work.

The journal should seek to maintain accurate status information in relevant publication metadata and indexing records where supported.

Exceptional Article Removal

Complete removal of published article content should be considered only in exceptional circumstances involving serious legal, privacy, confidentiality, or safety concerns that cannot be adequately addressed through less restrictive measures. Where removal is necessary, appropriate bibliographic records and an explanatory notice should be preserved to the extent legally and ethically permissible.

DOI and Publication Metadata

When significant post-publication actions occur, the journal should seek to maintain accurate publication metadata through its DOI registration and journal management systems.

Where supported, corrections and retractions should be registered as linked updates to original scholarly publications, following relevant Crossref guidance on article relationships, versioning, and publication status.

Authors

Authors are responsible for identifying and reporting significant errors in published community service articles, providing accurate explanations and supporting evidence, and cooperating with appropriate correction or retraction procedures.

Editors

Editors are responsible for evaluating legitimate concerns objectively, maintaining editorial independence, allowing appropriate author responses, determining proportionate corrective actions, and ensuring publication notices are accessible and transparent.

Community Partners

Community organizations and institutional partners are encouraged to report legitimate concerns involving the accuracy of program implementation records, participant involvement, community permissions, or published outcomes. Reports should be made responsibly and supported by available evidence.

Research Institutions

Research institutions are generally responsible for formally investigating research misconduct allegations concerning affiliated researchers and are encouraged to cooperate with the journal in resolving significant integrity concerns.

Publisher

The publisher should support editorial independence, facilitate the publication and preservation of formal notices, and assist with appropriate technical and administrative measures without improperly influencing editorial decisions.

OFFICIAL EDITORIAL CONTACT

Konsienti: Community Services Journal

Authors, readers, community partners, and other concerned parties may submit requests for corrections, clarification of published community service reports, or concerns involving possible retractions through the journal's Editorial Office.

Please identify the relevant article, include its DOI or publication URL where available, and describe the concern with appropriate supporting information. Confidential participant data and community records should only be transmitted through secure and authorized methods.

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

COPE Retraction Guidelines and principles of transparent scholarly publishing.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)

Recommendations concerning scientific misconduct, Expressions of Concern, and retraction procedures.

Crossref

Best practices for versioning, publication changes, DOI metadata maintenance, and linking post-publication updates.