Data sources and opt-out policy

Melola Discovery helps researchers find articles in Indonesian journals. This page explains what data we collect, where it comes from, and how journal managers or authors can opt out or ask for corrections. Melola Discovery is managed by melola.id, Kendari.

What we collect

• Metadata that journals publish openly through the OAI-PMH protocol (built into OJS): title, author names and affiliations as the journal lists them, abstract, keywords, date, volume/issue, DOI, licence and the link to the article.
• We do not store or distribute full texts (PDF). The PDF button and the article title always link to the journal’s site.
• Open supplementary data: OpenAlex (CC0) for citation counts, affiliations and reference lists; Crossref for DOI status.

How we collect it

• Our harvester identifies itself as MelolaDiscoveryBot/0.1 (+https://github.com/melola-discovery; research harvester), pauses between requests, and only reads the OAI-PMH endpoint the journal has made available.
• Every response is kept as a dated snapshot, so the origin of every record can be traced.
• Copyright stays with the authors and the journal. Every record names its source journal and links to the original article; the licence is shown when the journal states one.
• Payments (tokens) are only for Melola’s analysis features, never for the metadata itself, and do not affect the order of search results.

Melola does not sell article data

Search, article pages and all profiles are free. Tokens pay for the analysis computing Melola does (keyword maps, thematic evolution, document maps, storage), not for metadata or abstracts. Analysis results do not reproduce abstract text.

• Abstracts remain the property of the authors and the journal. On Melola’s pages, an abstract is shown with the journal’s name, its licence where there is one, and a link to the original article.
• Export files (CSV, RIS, BibTeX) only include the abstracts of articles under licences that allow reuse by anyone: CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-ND, CC0 or public domain. For articles under a non-commercial (NC) licence or without a licence, the abstract column is left empty and the Link column points to the article.
• Journals can correct their licence in OJS; the next harvest picks it up.

Journals that want to leave (opt-out)

Journal managers can ask for their journal to be removed from Melola at any time, without giving a reason.

1. Email admin@melola.id from the journal’s or editorial office’s official address, with the subject Journal opt-out, giving the journal’s name, its URL and the sender’s name.
2. We handle it within 7 working days and confirm by email.
3. Once handled, the journal no longer appears in search, maps, or journal, author and institution profiles, and is no longer harvested.
4. Metadata already collected is kept internally as a provenance record and is not shown. The journal can ask to be shown again at any time.

Metadata corrections

Our metadata follows the journal. Errors in titles, names or abstracts are best corrected in the journal’s OJS; Melola updates them at the next harvest. If it is more urgent, email admin@melola.id.

Authors

Author names and affiliations come from the metadata the journal publishes. Authors can ask for a profile to be corrected, split or merged, or for their personal data to be removed from the author profile, through admin@melola.id, under Indonesia’s Personal Data Protection Law (Law No. 27 of 2022). See also the privacy policy.

Retraction notices and expressions of concern

Melola marks articles that have a retraction notice, a withdrawal, or an expression of concern. The sources are Crossref (notices from publishers and the Retraction Watch database), OpenAlex, and notes by Melola administrators, which must link to evidence. Crossref data is fetched again every week and matched to article DOIs; every mark names its source, the date of the notice, and the date it was checked.

Melola does not assess articles, journals, or authors. There are no "predatory journal" labels, scores, or credit points. Articles without a DOI can only be marked through OpenAlex or an administrator's note, so the absence of a mark is not a guarantee. Mistaken marks can be reported to admin@melola.id.

Journals that want to be added

Journals that want to be indexed can send their name and OJS URL to admin@melola.id.

Indexed journals

500 journals, 76,037 records.