Melola Discovery user guide

Written by: Natalis Ransi and Yanti Sarira

Melola Discovery is a discovery platform for scholarly articles from Indonesian journals. Article metadata is harvested directly from journal websites (OAI-PMH) and enriched with citation data from OpenAlex and Crossref. This guide explains every feature, from a simple search to a systematic review project. The Melola Discovery interface is in Indonesian by default; the English version is available at addresses starting with /en/ (choose ID · EN at the top). Button and menu names in this guide are written exactly as they appear in the English interface.

1. Accounts and access tiers

Most features can be used without an account. An account is needed to save searches, use tokens, view your export history, and create review projects.

Creating an account

Click Create account at the top right.
Enter your email, a password, Full name, and Affiliation (optional), then tick the box to accept the privacy policy.
Open the verification email we send you and click the link. The link is valid for 3 days. Features that use tokens become available only after your email is verified.

You can also use the Sign up with Google or Sign in with Google button. If your Google address matches an existing account, the two are linked automatically. Next time, simply use Sign in.

Access tiers

Your tier determines your daily export limit, the number of records that can be mapped, and how analysis is paid for. Your tier is shown as a badge next to your name, at the top right.

Public: visitors without an account, or accounts with neither an academic email nor ORCID.
Academic: accounts with a verified .ac.id or .go.id email, or accounts linked to ORCID (Connect ORCID on the account page). Google accounts with a university email become Academic straight away.
Institution: accounts with a verified email from a subscribing institution. All analysis features can be used without tokens. Institution access must be re-confirmed once a year with the Re-confirm institutional email button on the account page.

The exact limits for your tier are always shown on the My account page, in the tier comparison table.

2. Searching for articles

Type keywords into the search box on the home page or in the top bar, then press Enter. The results page (/search/) shows 20 articles per page.

Search bar settings

Search in: limit the search to All fields, Title, Abstract, Keywords, Author, or Source title (journal name).
Matching:
- Relevance (most words) (default): articles matching the most words appear at the top, but articles that match only some of the words still appear.
- All words (strict): only articles containing every word.
Include synonyms, translations and abbreviations: also searches for equivalent terms from the glossary, for example jst = jaringan saraf tiruan = artificial neural network. This is very useful because many Indonesian articles switch between Indonesian and English terms.

Search recognises the base form of words, so pembelajaran also finds belajar. Common words such as the or of are ignored, and the results page tells you which words were ignored.

Sorting results

Choose Sort by: Relevance, Date (newest), Date (oldest), Cited by (OpenAlex), or Title (A–Z).

Filtering results (Refine results)

The left panel contains the filters:

Publication year: enter the From and To years, then Apply.
Value lists (facets) for Year, Author, Source title, Subject area, Keyword, Document type, Language, Access and identifiers, Indexed in, and Metadata source. Click Show N more to see more values.
Source title is grouped by the journal's SINTA rank when the article was published. You can tick a whole rank at once (for example all SINTA 2 journals) or only specific journals.

Tick the values you want, then click Limit to (show only those) or Exclude (remove those). Active filters appear as labels above the results. Click × to remove one filter, or Clear all to remove them all. The address of the results page can be copied and shared; others will see the same results.

Automatic help

If a word is misspelt, Melola shows results for the correct spelling with the option Search exactly for …, or offers Did you mean …?.
If All words (strict) mode finds nothing, Melola offers relevance-mode results.
If the glossary has equivalents for your word, you are offered a new search using those equivalents.

What each result shows

Each result shows the title, authors, journal, year, DOI, and an abstract snippet, plus links to Details (the article page), PDF ↗ (full text on the journal website), RIS (download the citation), and Cited by N (OpenAlex). In relevance mode, the note Matches X of Y terms shows how many words matched.

Search string for a review protocol

Open the Search string for your review protocol section below the results. It contains a Scopus-style search string, complete with the mode, analysis version, and search time, which you can copy with the Copy button into your protocol or the methods section of your research.

Saving a search

Once signed in, click Save search to save the search to your library. Saved searches are always re-run against the latest data.

3. Advanced Search and Boolean queries

Click Advanced next to the search box, or open /search/advanced/. This page is for building Boolean queries as in Scopus or Web of Science.

Write the query in the Query box.
Choose Words outside a field code search, that is, the field in which words without a field code are searched.
Click Check query to check it. Melola shows how it reads your query (How Melola reads it) and its translation for other databases (Scopus, Web of Science, and a version without field codes), ready to copy. If there is an error, a ^ mark points to its position.
Click Search to run it.

Syntax

Write	Meaning
`teknologi pangan`	Both words must be present (implicit AND).
`"jaringan saraf"`	Phrase: words in sequence.
`learn*`	Truncation: learn, learning, learner, and so on. At least 3 letters before *.
`A AND B`, `A OR B`	Both must be present; either one is enough.
`A NOT B` or `A AND NOT B`	Remove those containing B.
`( … )`	Grouping.
`TITLE( )`, `ABS( )`, `KEY( )`, `TITLE-ABS-KEY( )`, `AUTH( )`, `SRCTITLE( )`, `ALL( )`	Field codes: title, abstract, keywords, all three at once, author, journal name, all fields. Web of Science codes (`TS=`, `TI=`, `AB=`, `AK=`, `AU=`, `SO=`) are also accepted.

Example: TITLE-ABS-KEY(("e-learning" OR "pembelajaran daring") AND (mahasiswa OR student*))

Rules

Operators are written in capital letters: AND, OR, NOT.
Within one level, AND and OR must not be mixed; use brackets. Scopus and Web of Science read such a mixture in a different order, so Melola requires queries that are unambiguous.
NOT comes last in its group and may not start a query.
Year and journal filters are set on the results page, not in the query.

A Boolean query typed into the ordinary search box is also run as Boolean. In that case relevance mode, the glossary, and spelling correction are not used, so that the results match the query exactly.

4. Article page

Click a title or Details in the search results. The article page contains:

An Open access badge (if openly licensed), the collection type, and the journal's SINTA rank at the time the article was published, with its decree (SK) number.
The title (also titles in other languages), authors linked to their profiles, and affiliations linked to institution pages.
Publication data: journal, volume, issue, pages, DOI, ISSN, publication date, publisher, language, and licence.
Abstracts (in every available language) and keywords. Click a keyword to search for it.
Collaboration network of the authors: the authors' collaboration network. Hover or tap to highlight, double-click to open a profile, or choose Show as table.
Full text (PDF) and View at publisher ↗, which open the full text on the journal website. Melola does not store PDFs.
Download RIS and Download BibTeX for Mendeley, Zotero, EndNote, or LaTeX.
Citations and indexing: whether the article was found in OpenAlex and Crossref, with its citation count.
Cite this article: ready-to-use citations in APA 7 and IEEE style, with a Copy button.
The metadata source and harvest date. The original metadata (oai_dc) can be opened for checking.

5. Exporting search results

The export panel is on the search results page. Export does not require tokens, but is limited by a quota according to your access tier.

Choose a format: RIS, CSV (Scopus format), or BibTeX. The CSV uses the Scopus column layout, so it can be opened directly in VOSviewer or bibliometrix (R).
Enter the number of records (first N of … results), following the current sort order and filters.
Click Download.

The quota line below the button shows the limit per export and your remaining quota over the last 24 hours. The quota is counted on a rolling basis, not reset at midnight.
Large exports are prepared in the background. Download the file from Your exports on the account page. Failed exports do not count against your quota.
Abstracts are included only for articles licensed CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-ND, CC0, or in the public domain, in line with the licence granted by the journal. Click Why? for an explanation.
Downloading a single article (RIS/BibTeX from the search results or the article page) does not count against the quota.

6. Journal

The journal list (the journal count link on the home page) lists every indexed journal, with its SINTA rank, institution, number of records, and year range. Sort by Title or Records.

A journal profile page contains:

The SINTA rank and the SINTA accreditation table: rank history, validity period, decree (SK) number, and the issues covered.
Summary figures: number of records, years, authors, citations (OpenAlex), organisations, and cross-institution articles.
Records per year, Metadata quality (metadata completeness compared with the median of all journals), and Most cited (OpenAlex).
Where the authors come from: a map of the authors' institutions (see full collaboration map).
The Search this journal button for searching within that journal only, plus the most frequent authors and keywords.

7. Authors and institutions

Author profile

Click an author's name anywhere. The author profile shows the affiliation, number of articles in Melola, citations, journals, ORCID, and OpenAlex ID where available, as well as:

Co-authors: the co-author network. Colours show organisations; line styles show same or different organisations; line thickness shows the number of joint articles. Also available as a table.
Where the co-authors are: a map of the co-authors' institutions.
A list of articles with their citations.

Author profiles are built automatically from journal metadata and OpenAlex. If any data is wrong, see the corrections section.

Institutions

The institution directory can be filtered by Country and Name. An institution page shows the number of records, authors, citations, journals, and collaborations, as well as:

Partner institutions: the network of partner institutions. Tap to see joint records, double-tap to open a partner institution.
Where the partners are: a map of the partner institutions.
The most cited articles, the latest articles, the most active authors, the journals published in, and the main keywords.

8. Maps and analysis

Above the search results there are four tabs: Documents, Collaboration map, Keyword map, and Document map. All maps follow the current query and filters.

Collaboration map: no token needed

The network of authors in the search results, with their organisations. Tap a name to Open profile or Limit results to this author. Tables of authors and organisations are available below the map.

Keyword map: requires tokens

A VOSviewer-style keyword (co-occurrence) map, for seeing themes and how topics develop.

Views: Network, Overlay: year, Overlay: citations, Density, and Thematic map.
Thematic evolution shows how themes move between periods. This feature uses its own tokens.
Settings:
- Terms from: author keywords, or titles and abstracts;
- Min. occurrences, Periods (years dividing the periods, for example 2018, 2022), and Max. terms;
- Clean terms: a list of words to remove and a Thesaurus for merging term variants (one line per equivalent, variant = term).
Click Update to redraw.
Tap a keyword to limit the results to it or to search for it.
Tables of keywords, clusters, themes, and thematic evolution, plus a Method (for your methods section) section ready to cite in the methods section of your article.
Downloads for VOSviewer (map file, network file) and CSV files of themes and thematic evolution.

Document map: requires tokens

A map of articles based on bibliographic coupling: two articles are close if they cite the same references. The references come from OpenAlex. Views are Network, Overlay: year, Overlay: citations, and Density, with a Max. records setting, tables of records and method, and downloads for VOSviewer.

Full collaboration map: free preview, the full map requires tokens

Author, journal, and institution pages have a geographic map of where the institutions are.

Free preview: a choice of Indonesia or World view, a summary (the percentage in Indonesia, abroad, and with unknown location), and a table of institutions.
Open the full map (requires tokens) opens all institutions, a year filter, the spread across provinces and islands, collaboration distance, and trends per year.

Token rules for maps

Map features require an account with a verified email (or ORCID). Institution accounts do not use tokens.
Tokens are spent only if the map is created successfully. Empty maps are not charged.
Reopening the same map within 24 hours, including downloading its VOSviewer files, does not use tokens again. The note below the map always tells you whether tokens were spent.
The number of records mapped is limited according to your access tier, and taken from the top records in the current result order.

Click Save map to my library to save the map exactly as drawn.

9. My library (Library)

The Library menu at the top right (after signing in) contains the searches and maps you have saved.

Saved searches are always re-run against the latest data and open in the results list.
Saved maps are frozen exactly as they were when saved, including their list of records. Opening a saved map and downloading its VOSviewer files is free. The Run this search again button runs the search again with the latest data.
Storage requires tokens according to the size of what you store, charged weekly. Every new account gets free space for an initial period. The Storage section shows the space used, the next weekly charge, and an estimate of how many weeks your balance will last.
If the weekly charge cannot be paid, new saving is paused and you receive a reminder email. Saved items can still be opened, but will be deleted if your balance is not topped up before the grace period ends.
Saved items are deleted with the Delete button. Tokens already spent are not refunded.

10. Tokens

Tokens are the unit of payment for advanced analysis. Your token balance is shown at the top right and on the Tokens page.

Features that require tokens

Keyword map (including VOSviewer downloads and theme CSV)
Thematic evolution
Document map
Full collaboration map on author, journal, and institution pages
Library storage (weekly)
Review projects (monthly, paid by the project owner)
PRISMA diagram export and report packs

Features without tokens

Basic search and Advanced Search, filters, article pages, citation downloads, search result export (within the quota), journal, author, and institution profiles with their networks, the collaboration map preview, the Collaboration map of search results, and opening saved maps and searches.

Getting tokens

Welcome tokens are given once after your email (or ORCID) is verified. Academic accounts get an additional bonus; accounts that become Academic later receive the difference once.
Buying tokens: on the Tokens page, choose a package in the Buy tokens section. You are taken to the Midtrans payment page and can pay with QRIS (any e-wallet or mobile banking app) or a bank virtual account. Tokens are added automatically once payment is complete. If the page returns before the status changes, click Check again.
Institution accounts do not need tokens.

History and terms

The Purchases section records your purchases and their status; unpaid orders can be continued with Pay. The History section records every token addition and use. Tokens do not expire while your account is active. The full terms, including refunds, are in the Terms of purchase.

11. Systematic review projects and PRISMA diagrams

Open this module from the Review projects menu on the account page (My account).

This module guides a systematic review or scoping review from the protocol to the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram (Page et al., 2021), with a team of up to 5 people including the owner. Every number in the diagram is calculated from recorded decisions, so it cannot be typed in by hand and can always be traced.

Roles in the team

Owner: writes the protocol and query, manages sources and the team, and pays for the project.
Reviewer: screens records and assesses eligibility independently.
Reviewer and arbiter: like a reviewer, and also resolves disagreements and checks duplicates.

Steps

Creating a project. In Review projects, fill in the Working title, choose Systematic review or Scoping review, then click Create. A project requires monthly tokens, paid by the owner when the project is created and every month while the project is active.
1 · Protocol. Choose a question framework (PICO, PICOC, or PCC for a scoping review), write the research question and its elements, the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the full-text exclusion reasons (one per line), the number of reviewers per stage (two independent reviewers or one), and the registration number (PROSPERO, OSF) if any. Changes after the query is locked must be justified and are recorded as protocol deviations.
2 · Query. Build the query in three ways that stay in sync:
- concept blocks, that is, one block per element of the question with one term per line (blocks are combined with AND, or NOT to exclude); suggested equivalents from the glossary appear for each term;
- Boolean text using the Advanced Search syntax;
- pasting an existing query.
Set the year and language filters, then click Test query to see the number of results per block, sample recent records, and the query translated for Scopus and Web of Science. Add benchmark articles in the Reference set (DOI or Melola article link) to test whether the query finds them. Save a version with Test and save as version. When you are satisfied, click Lock on that version. Locking cannot be undone and stores a snapshot of the search results.
3 · Sources. Add the locked Melola query results, then import results from other databases (Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar via Publish or Perish, Garuda, DOAJ, PubMed, and others) in RIS, BibTeX, or CSV format (up to 10 MB per file). Record the database name, the search string used there, the search date, and its filters, in line with PRISMA-S. Records from other methods (websites, organisations, citation tracking) can be entered manually or through Citation searching in Melola, which tracks the references and citing works of reports that passed. Records from other methods go straight to the full-text stage.
4 · Duplicates. Click Find duplicates. Records with the same DOI, or the same title, year, and first author, are marked as duplicates straight away. Pairs with very similar titles are shown for a decision: Same record or Different records. Screening starts only after all pairs have been decided.
5 · Screening. Each reviewer screens titles and abstracts one by one with Include, Unsure, or Exclude (keyboard shortcuts i, u, e). With two reviewers, the other reviewer's decisions are hidden (blind). Unsure goes on to full text.
Conflicts. If two reviewers disagree, the arbiter decides on the Conflicts page. Inter-reviewer agreement (percentage and Cohen's κ) is shown in the project summary.
6 · Full texts. For each report that passed, record whether its full text was Retrieved or Not retrieved, with a link to where it is. Melola does not store full-text files.
7 · Eligibility. Assess each full text: Include, or Exclude with one reason from the protocol. Two reviewers agree if both the decision and the reason are the same; otherwise it becomes a conflict for the arbiter.
8 · Included. If one study is reported in several articles, link the additional articles to the study's main article, so that the diagram counts studies and reports separately.
9 · PRISMA. A preview of the PRISMA 2020 diagram is available at any time without tokens. The Not final yet list shows what is still unfinished. When everything is done, export (requires tokens):
- Diagram (SVG), Diagram (PNG), or Diagram to print or save as PDF;
- Report pack (ZIP): the diagram, numbers, search strategy per source, protocol and its deviations, list of included reports (CSV and RIS), list of full-text exclusions with reasons, reviewer agreement, and the PRISMA 2020 or PRISMA-ScR checklist.
Exporting again within 24 hours with the same numbers, in any format, does not use tokens again.

Team and project status

The owner invites members on the Team page by email and role. The invitation contains a link that members must open after signing in with their Melola account. Team members pay nothing.
If the monthly charge cannot be paid, the project can still be used during a grace period with reminder emails, and is then frozen: read-only, with nothing deleted. Top up your tokens and click Reactivate to continue.
The owner can archive a finished project (Archive) to stop the charges. Frozen and archived projects can still be opened, and their diagrams can still be exported.
Institution accounts are not charged tokens for review projects.

12. Account page, privacy, and deleting your account

Click your name at the top right to open My account. It contains:

Access tier: your tier and how to move up a tier.
Tokens: your balance and a link to the tokens page.
Export quota: your export quota use over the last 24 hours and the tier comparison table.
Profile: change your name and affiliation, manage email addresses, connect ORCID, or change your password.
Your exports: downloads of background exports and your export history, with a Run again button to repeat a search.

Personal data is managed in accordance with Law No. 27 of 2022 on Personal Data Protection (UU Nomor 27 Tahun 2022 tentang Pelindungan Data Pribadi); see the privacy policy. To delete your account, click Delete my account at the bottom of the account page and type HAPUS. Your profile, email, ORCID link, and export files will be deleted. Unused tokens are forfeited.

13. Data sources, corrections, and contact

Metadata comes from journal websites (OAI-PMH), with citation and affiliation data from OpenAlex and Crossref. The list of journals, SINTA ranks, and the time of the last harvest are on Data sources & opt-out.
New articles appear after the journal publishes them and Melola harvests the journal again in its regular cycle.
Metadata corrections are best made on the journal website, because Melola follows the journal's data at the next harvest.
Authors can request correction or removal of their personal data from the author profile.
Journal managers can ask for their journal to be added to or removed from Melola.
Contact: admin@melola.id.

14. Frequently asked questions

Does Melola store article PDFs?: No. The PDF and View at publisher buttons open the full text on the journal website.
Why do citation counts differ from Google Scholar?: Citations in Melola come from OpenAlex, whose coverage differs from Google Scholar. The numbers are generally smaller but easier to trace.
Why can't I find my article?: Check that the journal is in the journal list. If it is, try Relevance mode, turn on synonyms, or search with Search in: Title. If the journal is not there yet, the journal's managers can request that it be added.
Which SINTA rank is shown?: The article page and the Source title filter use the SINTA rank valid on the article's publication date, according to the accreditation decree (SK). The journal profile shows the full history.
Does opening the same map twice use tokens twice?: No, as long as it is opened again within 24 hours with the same settings. Downloading the VOSviewer files from that map does not use tokens again either.
Can Melola results be used for a systematic review?: Yes. Copy the Search string for your review protocol, export a Scopus-format CSV or RIS, or use the review project module, which records every step through to the PRISMA diagram.

Copyright © 2026 Natalis Ransi and Yanti Sarira. This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0): it may be copied, distributed, and adapted provided the authors are credited, it is not used for commercial purposes, and adaptations use the same licence.