Editorial Policies

Neoplasia Research has constructed the below editorial policies in accordance to the instructions by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). We shape our publishing platform to comply with the Best Practice Guidelines of the committee and follow its Code of Conduct.

Editors

Chief Editors at Neoplasia Research suggest and approve the policies to fulfill the research needs of both readers and authors of the journals. By these actions they mainly aim to bring improvements to the journals and keep the quality of published materials at the highest possible levels.

Editorial Board Members

Chief Editorsof Neoplasia Research’s Journals may suggest the names of suitably qualified scholars as new editorial board members. The EBMs should keep themselves updated about new policies and developments in their journals which guide them about their expected roles. EBMs make policies that ensure the readers about careful and unbiased external review of submissions from any of the members; work as representatives of their journals to support and promote the journals; look for the best work and potential authors of the related field of the journal; and may occasionally be requested to review submissions to the journals maintaining the double-blinded reviewing policy. They are supposed to attend and contribute to the meetings of editorial board addressing the development and future challenges of the journals; or regret promptly with evident reasons in case they are unable to do so.Editorial members of the journals of Neoplasia Research take all reasonable steps and provide guidance to ensure the quality of the material published by the journals recognizing that the submissions to the journals, acceptable for publication, suitably fit under the aims and standards of the journals and novelty of the research work is worthwhile.

Copyright Ownership:

For all works published by the Neoplasia Research, articles are considered as the intellectual property of the authors who reserve ownership of the copyright for their article, but allow all readers to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles in the journals by Neoplasia research provided the original authors and source are appropriately cited.

All Submissions to our journals must be original work, the copyright to which is not previously owned by anyone, elsewhere. Genuine and innovative work is always welcomed along with a strong encouragement for cross- disciplinary approaches. It is the corresponding authors' responsibility to check for possible copyright conflict with the copyright holder and agree to our Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement.

 

No Parallel Publication:

When a manuscript is submitted to Neoplasia Research journals for consideration parallel submissions of same material, in whole or in part, elsewhere are not allowed. Posting of same manuscript on authors’ institutional website prior to publication by Neoplasia Research Journals also falls under this restriction and should be avoided.If any such practice comes under the notice of the journals’ editorial team the article may be rejected at once due to authors’ unethical behavior, and notifying the author about this final editorial decision.

Authorship of the Article:

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. No responsibilty lies on Neoplasia research regarding the authorship matters including their names or the order of the authors list in case of articles where we sense any dispute regarding the authorship matter Neoplasia Research reserves the right of not publishing that article. The participants who have contributed in certain substantive aspects of the research project, should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. If the article is submitted by a group of researchers, at least one of them should be identified by name and for being responsible for communications related to manuscript publication and for responding to inquiries, if any, about the published article. This author's name and contact information is required be presented as the Corresponding Author on the title page.

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. No responsibility lies on Neoplasia Research regarding the authorship matters including their names or the order of the authors list. In case of articles where we sense any dispute regarding the authorship matter Neoplasia Research reserves the right of not publishing that article. The participants who have contributed in certain substantive aspects of the research project, should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.


Corresponding Authorship:


If the article is submitted by a group of researchers, at least one of them should be identified by an asterisk on the name for being responsible for communications related to manuscript publication and for responding to inquiries, if any, about the published article. This author's name and contact information will be presented as the Corresponding Author on the title page. The corresponding author is the author responsible for communicating with the journal for publication related matters. The corresponding author should ensure that all author agree to be the co-authors, accept their order of names as listed in the submitted article and agree on the content of the article and its submission for publication and have approved the final version of the paper.


Neoplasia Research encourages its authors to follow COPE’s guidelines for authorship matters which can be viewed at 2003pdf12_0.pdf (publicationethics.org)

Licensing Policy:

With the vision to increase the global exchange of knowledge, Neoplasia Research makes the research freely available to readers worldwide and provides immediate access to all of its published content by choosing the open-access publication policy.

All of our published articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License, which permits the readers sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction and non-commercial use of our published articles in any medium or format, as long as appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source is given by the user.

Authors of our published articles retain intellectual property rights of their articles (including research data); attribution rights for their published work; and may share their article provided it contains the end user license and the DOI link to its version in our journal’s archive.

Authors have copyright but grant license exclusive rights of their article to Neoplasia Research.

Authors of Neoplasia Research are given the right to use their articles, in full or in part, for scholarly but non-commercial purposes including:

  • Distribution of soft/print copies of their articles to known researchers/colleagues for their personal use rather than the Commercial Use
  • Inclusion of their article in a thesis or dissertation that will not be published commercially
  • Distribution for classroom teaching (including electronic/print copies)
  • Use in a subsequent compilation of their works
  • Extending the Article to book-length form
  • For the Preparation of any noncommercial derivative works

Plagiarism Policy:

“Copying of text, completely or partially, from other published material or authors’ own previously published work without proper acknowledgment; and misquoting original ideas, authorship, text or results is considered as Plagiarism.”


There is no space for any form of plagiarized material in Neoplasia Research journals.


It is noteworthy that all articles submitted to Neoplasia Research are subjected to plagiarism check (copying of any material) on submission. Professionally-recognized soft wareis used to evaluate plagiarism in all submissions. Our authors are instructed to assure the journals’ editors about following this policy by providing proper citation of any directly quoted material whether in text form, images, data or ideas. Articles may be highly prone to major revisions or even rejection if their amount of similarity index to other articles in our database is found greater than the allowed limits. We make sure to check all articles against plagiarism just after their submission however, in rare cases of detection of plagiarism after publication of the article, Neoplasia Research reserves the right to retract the article from its website simultaneously issuing a note of retraction at the website along with the reason, and informing the authors’ institutions about their decision to do so.

Disclosure of Financial Support:

All authors should disclose any financialfunding provided by the institutional or government authorities for the research project reported in the article.If funding sponsors had any role in the design of the research; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data produced/analysed in the study; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results it must be clearly declared in this section.

Conflict of Interest:

“A competing interest/conflict of interest is something that actually interferes with, or may be seen as an interfering factor in the presentation, peer review, editorial handling, or publication of a submitted article. Competing Interest may be present in the form of financial, nonfinancial, professional or personal perspectives.”

A conflict of interest may arise when the author or author’s institution may have a financial, non-financial, and personal or any other association with the publisher or the people involved in the publishing process, which may influence integrity of the author’s work. Authors should declare any conflict of interest at the time of submission of manuscript or at the earliest possible stage after its recognition.

The conflicts should be included at the end of the manuscript, before the references, under the heading of “Conflict of Interest”. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, and allowances, paid expert testimony, past and present affiliations or other funding.

If any conflict of interest is suspected, it should be reported to the Neoplasia Research or Editor.
The mention of such interests does not make the manuscripts unethical but they should be acknowledged. In case of no conflict, the authors are required to include this in their manuscripts as well, clearly stating “The authors declare no conflict of interest”.

For resolving issues regarding conflicts of interests Neoplasia Research editors are instructed to work in line with:

https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/u7140/Discussion_document__on_handling_competing_interests.pdf

To promote transparency without hindering publication schedule Neoplasia Research execute every possible step to be vigilant about potential conflicts of interest however, guaranteeing that our Editors are aware of all competing interests of reviewers is beyond truthfulness. Therefore, we appeal our reviewers to report to the Editor-in-Chief/Handling Editor if they note any potential competing interest during the course of a manuscript review process. Moreover, reviewers’ own conflict of interest with the content or authors of the manuscript should also be conveyed to the editors. If the assigned editor will find it appropriate to remove the reviewer, weighing the type and extent of the conflict, other reviewers will be contacted for the review.

In particular, scholars from the same institution as the authors, current colleagues, recent colleagues, recent co-authors are avoided as reviewers . The editors are not involved in decisions about articles written by themselves or by their family members/ colleagues; or where the content of article relates to products or services for which editors may have an interest. Neoplasia Research manages Competing interest according to COPE’s directives , for further reading see:

https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/u7140/Discussion_document__on_handling_competing_interests.pdf

Protecting Individual Data/Maintaining Confidentiality

The Editor in Chief/editors and any editorial staff must not disclose any information present in a submitted manuscript to anyone else other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher. everyone  should obey the laws related to this in their own working space. it is necessary to protect the personal information gathered during the research or professional interactions.  in cases where there is a likelihood of persons being recognized by themselves/other readers(e.g. in case studies/photographic illustrations) a written, clearly informed consent for publication should always be gathered from these individuals and presented to the editors. Please not that the consent to take part in a research study or to undergo a treatment should not be considered the same as consent to publish the personal details/images. The JCRU commits strictly to follow its policy on publishing individual data (e.g. identifiable personal details or images) and explains this clearly to authors.

Participants of the research studies have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without their  informed consent. Identifying information should not be published unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. A patient who is identifiable must be shown the manuscript to be published. In case of clinical studies, case reports or patient data presentation it is mandatory that the identifying details of patients should be omitted if they are not essential. If identifying details are required to be published, the patients must be shown the manuscript before publication, in case of altered details with the purpose of protecting patients identity, authors should provide assurance that the alterations do not change the results or conclusions of this paper and Editors should be informed. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be clearly mentioned in the manuscript.

Digital Data Archiving:

Neoplasia Research takes full responsibility for the online presence of each published article. To ensure the fulfilment of our commitment in cases of unforeseen events, the content of all journals has been deposited and archived in LOCKSS through the PKP Preservation Network. All articles published by Neoplasia Research Journals will be indexed in the indexing agencies wherein the respective journals are listed.

Neoplasia Research also allows its authors having a substantial self-archiving policy by which authors are free to self-archive their accepted manuscript in any institutional/disciplinary/state repository shortly after its first online publication by its journals. However, in these archives proper acknowledgment is required to be given to our journals as original source of publication. For this, a link may be provided with the archived article to the originally published article by Neoplasia Research.

Data Fabrication and Manipulation:

Deliberate manipulation of research findings/data with the intention of producing false research impression is denounced by Neoplasia Research. Image manipulation, removal of results unsupportive to the conclusion, changing/adding/deleting graph points etc. are all considered as data fabrication, though this list is not exhaustive, and not allowed in submitted articles. Nevertheless, proper technical manipulation of a complete image/graph is permissible if required for better readability, however any such technical manipulation is required to be clearly mentioned in cover letter accompanying the submitted article . Any partial manipulation involving parts, rather than the full image, is strictly forbidden. Editors are instructed to follow COPE guidelines to handle any falsification of data according to the:

Suspected fabricated data in a submitted manuscript

Neoplasia Research team particularly deals with illustrative information in submitted articles however, in rare cases if data fabrication is brought to notice after the article is published, the editors will deal with these issues following COPE’s guidelines, please see:

Fabricated data suspected in a published article (publicationethics.org)

Editorial and Peer Review Processes:

Editors of Neoplasia Research are kept informed about timely, fair and unbiased peer review in their journals. Neoplasia Research strives to make sure that the publication material submitted to the journals remains confidential while under review process. The persons involved in editorial process are periodically kept informed about the latest guidelines and recommendations for the reviewing process, and the technological advances to assist the process. For details see Peer Review Policy. The editorial members are regularly asked for their valuable advices to bring further improvements in review process. If editors suspect unfair review process, they are directed to follow:

https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/recognising-peer-review-manipulation-cope-infographic.pdf

If any case cannot be concluded by internal EBMs of the journals, the EIC has the authority to involve some external scholar/professional for guidance after consulting with the journal’s permanent EBMs.
If any usual situation during review process of an article is brought forward to the editors they may refer such case to COPE provided no guidelines are available to resolve such issue.

Dealing with Possible Misconduct:

If a case of suspected misconduct is brought to editors it is their responsibility to follow the guiding rules of:

https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/ethical-problem-in-submitted-manuscript-cope-flowchart.pdf

topursue such cases rather than simply rejecting the submitted articles. This refers to both published as well as unpublished articles. For alleged misconduct in published articles, COPE’s guidelines are followed accordingly. To resolve the issues,editors are advised to first seek a reply from the respective authors regarding the suspected misconduct. In case of unsatisfying answers, their employers, institution or a related regulatory body may be approached for investigation.

Though a time-consuming and demanding duty, editors are supposed to take regular feedback from the journals’ relevant staff to make sure that the case of any alleged misconduct has been fully resolved. If a proper investigation into alleged misconduct is not being carried out, editors may take the needful steps to involve other members/EIC in order to obtain a resolution to the problem.

Ensuring the Integrity of the Academic Record:

Neoplasia Research team work meticulously to ensure that the content published by its platform is final and academically reliable and integrity of the research record is maintained. However, in exceptional cases of serious mistakes revealed after the publication of the articles, our team members work promptly for taking the actions deemed necessary to maintain the integrity of academic record. Both authors and publisher are supposed to participate in this process according to the COPE’S respective guidelines. For details, see https://publicationethics.org/sites/default/files/ethical-concerns-published_research.pdf

In extremely rare situations of any serious error/ statement revealed in our published articles, Neoplasia Research follows its post publication policies as described below.All post-publication changes are carried out according to the COPE guidelines.

https://publicationethics.org/postpublication

Post Publication Policies:

Article Correction:

It is Neoplasia Research’s policy that our published articles should remain exact and unaltered to the maximally possible extent however, if an author discovers a scientifically significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work specially those that may affect the interpretation of data or reliability of the information presented in the article, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the journal editor/ Publisher and cooperate with the editor to correct the error. The Editor of the journal will determine the impact of the change in the article and decide on the appropriate course of action. To keep our readers fully informed and maintain the integrity of the scholarly record any necessary changes will be accompanied with a post-publication corrigendum/Erratum/Editorial expression of concern, permanently linked to the original article. A correction for a published article will only be considered after receiving approval and instructions from the EiC of the journal. In rare cases, post-publication Corrections may be considered by the publisher if the errors adversely affect the publication record, or the repute of the journal. All corrections are made according to the COPE Guidelines https://publicationethics.org/case/how-correct-published-paper

Article Retraction:

In rare cases of serious issues discovered after the publication of an article like errors in the conducting/analyzing/reporting of the study; Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, data falsification and fabrication by the authors, the articles may be retracted by Neoplasia Research. The original article will be visible on the journal’s website marked as “retracted” with a brief retraction statement linked to the PDF version of the original article.

Article Removal:

In case Neoplasia Research faces exceptional circumstances of finding some published article defamatory, unlawful in any form, infringing on a third party’s legal rights, or imposing serious and immediate risks to health if practiced, or on receiving a clearly stated court/state order it reserves the right to remove such article, either temporarily or permanently. The title of the removed article andit’s authors’ names will be retained at the journal websitehowever, and a short declaration note will be available to the readers for knowing brief reasons for the removal.

Journals Management:

As soon as a submission is made to the Neoplasia Research journals, the authors receive an email acknowledging receipt of their article submission. Initially the editorial staff checksthe articles for fulfillment of all mandatory requirements, as described in Author’s submission checklist, by the authors. After going through this initial phase successfully, the submitted manuscript is sent to an editorial board member of the relevant journal. The assigned editor reviews the article initially for its topic suitability tothe scope of the journal, sees if it meets the minimum criteria for consideration and scholarliness. If the article fails to meet this criteria, itdoes not get editorial approval for peer review; and the author is notified by email with a brief explanation of the reasons for being inconsiderable for publication. If it does fulfills the minimum criteria, the handling editor approves it for peer reviewing by selecting at least two reviewers, specialized in the relevant field, one of whom may be a member of the editorial board. No one, except the handling editor/peer review coordinator, will ever be aware of the reviewers of a manuscript. The reviewers are chosen on the basis of their knowledge in the relevant field, and their consent is first sought regarding their willingness/time availability to review the article in a given time frame. any possible conflict of interest is given special attention at this stage and reviewers are provided with an opportunity to regret from reviewing an article where they discover any competing interest with the author/content of the article. Editors are supposed to keep themselves updated about the Editorial policies of the journal and work accordingly.

Reviewers are requested for submitting their written report of the article’s review within the given time frame(generally, one month of receipt of the article). Reviewers are suggested to read guidelines for peer reviewers of the journal and adhere to these. https://neoplasiaresearch.com/pms/index.php/index/Peer-Review-Policy

Receiving reviewers’ reports helps the handling editor or editorial board making the final decision about acceptance/rejection of an article for publication. This decision is based on the quality of the manuscript, reviewers’ recommendations, and the number of manuscripts already accepted in the journal. The authors are notified about editor’s decision for their manuscript via email.

If revisions are advised by the reviewers for the improvement of manuscript, the article is sent back to author along with the detailed suggestions for revision. A deadline for the revision can be suggested by the editor. Once the revised article is submitted, the editor maydecide eitherto approve the article for final publication or to send it to one or both of the initial reviewers for their follow-up evaluation and approval. If manuscript still needs further work before publication according to the reviewers,it may be returned to the author with referees’ comments for improvements and an editor’s letter. Only a maximum of 3 rounds of review ispermissible for any submitted manuscript.

Once an article has been finally approved for publication, it goes through a production process. An electronic versions of the typeset edited article called proofs/galleys is sent to the author for final inspection and approval. Generally, authors have 48-72 hours to review the final proof and suggest any alterations (usually limited to spelling errors). As the proof is returned, the managing editorial staff enters any required changes and it is published online in the current volume of the journal within minimal possible time.

Handling editors/ Editorial Board Members/ EIC, as appropriate, are to be contacted if any post publication issue arises.

Research Data Policy and Data Availability Statements:

If an article submitted to the Neoplasia Research presents some research where some data has been generated/analyzed, we encourage the authors to share this data, provided this is not prohibited due to some justified reasons. Such data sharing is especially stressed if data will ease the comprehension, evaluation or extension of the published research by the readers and it hasa significant effect on the conclusion of the study.

Data may be shared in the form of additional supplementary files orif it has been deposited in a data repository, the digital object identifiers (DOIs) or data accession numbers may be provided in the submitted article.Alternatively,a web link to datasets may also be shared by the authors. Authors may use any commonly available repositories such as GiTHub, Figshare or Dryad etc. for depositing their data.

If authors understand that the data will be required for peer review of their article, they should blind the authorship of any data provided for peer review at the time of article submission as Neoplasia Research journals are committed to indiscriminately follow the double-blinded peer review policy. Data repositories providing such author-blinding services are available and authors may request for these.

Also, whenever the research involves data usage, a statement of Data availability/unavailability must be mentioned in the article. Such statements may take any of the forms given below:

1. The datasets generated and/or analyzed during this study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS/DOI/Data Accession Number]

2. Authors are unable to publicly present the datasets generated and/or analyzed during the present study due to [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] however, it may be provided by the corresponding author on reasonable request.

3. Supplementary information files in this article present the data used/generated during this study.

Appeals & Complaints:

If any author wants that the decision of rejection of his/her article should be reconsidered, he/she may send such appeals to appeal@neoplasiaresearch.com. The appeals will be conveyed to the handling author of the article for consideration. As the priority is given to the active submissions to the journals the appeals may take time to be replied back. The journal’s editorial team’s consultation is sought after for final decision on an appeal and the authors will be informed about the final decision. In case of reasonable appeals authors will be notified about how their manuscript will be handled again.

Neoplasia Research editors are open to respond to any complaints reaching them through proper channel and reply to these at their earliest. Authors’ complaints about very long delays in processing of their articles; unethical conduct of reviewer/ editor may be sent via email to appeal@neoplasiaresearch.com. The handling editor of the articlein assistance with journal’s staff will be responsible for investigating and replying to the complaints of delays in processing of the manuscript. The complainant and the relevant participant from journal’s team will be timely provided with appropriate feedback for improving our processes and procedures. Necessary course of action will be taken by Editorial board members against the complaints of ethical misconduct; and the complainant will be given a feedback in minimal possible time that may be required for the appropriate investigations.

Direct Marketing:

Neoplasia Research also considers direct marketing activities. For contact email to info@neoplasiaresearch.com