Community service is one of the Tri dharma (principles) of Higher Education that must be conducted by lectures besides teaching and research. Lectures at Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Tarbiyah Hidayatullah Batam conducted a lot of community service activities in various fields. One of the expected outputs from these activities is a scientific work. However, it is difficult for the lectures conducting the community service, especially at Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Tarbiyah Hidayatullah Batam, to find a place for publishing the work. Therefore, Lembaga Penelitian dan Pengabdian Masyarakat (LPPM) STIT Hidayatullah Batam initiated to create a journal dedicated to publish articles with the theme of community service in July 2023. The first Board was chaired by Muthma’innah, M.Pd. (Editor in Chief), who also served as the Head of LPPM STIT Hidayatullah Batam. The name of the journal, SIGMA: Jurnal Sinergi Mengabdi was derived from Pengabdian (devotion/service).
The first issue of Sigma: Jurnal Sinergi Mengabdi, Vol. 1 No. 1 (July 2023), was published on July 31, 2023, with 5 articles. Subsequent issues will routinely contain 5-8 articles per issue. The ISSN application process was then processed, and Sigma's ISSN was published in August 2023. We will then submit our application for Garuda and Google Scholar indexing in August-September 2023.
Next, following up on the Decree of the Minister of Religious Affairs Number 1138 of 2023 concerning the Permit for the Merger of STIT Hidayatullah Batam and IAI Abdullah Said Batam, resulting in STIT Hidayatullah Batam having officially changed its name to the Institut Agama Islam (IAI) Hidayatullah Batam. This has an impact on the OJS Website of STIT Hidayatullah Batam having moved the OJS domain on March 1, 2025 to https://ojs.instituthidayatullahbatam.ac.id/ with the OJS website Sigma: Jurnal Sinergi Mengabdi, jurnal pengabdian kepada masyarakat, Institut Agama Islam Hidayatullah Batam yaitu https://ojs.instituthidayatullahbatam.ac.id/index.php/jurnalsigma/.
We also submitted an email request to BRIN ISSN to change the publisher's name to the Hidayatullah Islamic Institute of Batam. BRIN responded on August 27, 2025. BRIN stated that the request has been processed.
We also submitted an email request to Crossref to change the publisher's name to the Hidayatullah Islamic Institute of Batam. Crossref responded on May 29, 2025. Crossref stated that they were waiting for changes to BRIN's data before they could process the changes. We are still awaiting the completion of these changes.
After 2 years of the Sigma journal publishing process starting from the publication of ISSN, precisely after the publication of Vol. 3 No. 1: (July 2025) (in this publication it has been officially published by Sigma at the IAI Hidayatullah Batam journal house), namely in October 2025, Sigma officially has a DOI Crossref, and then continued with the preparation of filling out the national journal accreditation file form via ARJUNA.
