Indian Journal of Pathology and Oncology

Editorial Policies

Indian Journal of Pathology and Oncology is committed to uphold the integrity of the scientific record, Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement. It is based on the Code of Conduct and Best Publishing Practice in scientific publications, which includes the Recommendations for the Conduct Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journal (ICMJE) and Principal of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (joint statement by COPE, WAME, and OASPSA). Indian Journal of Pathology and Oncology encourage its editors to follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) “Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors”.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the false depiction of another person's words, ideas, or expressions as one's own unique work. It occurs when you incorporate someone else's ideas or work into your own without giving them due credit. This can happen with or without the original author's permission. Indian Journal of Pathology and Oncology also consider “self-plagiarism” as a form of plagiarism. An example of self-plagiarism would be when an author borrows from his or her own previously published work without the proper citation within the newly submitted manuscript. We provide iThenticate software to our editor and reviewers as a part of our manuscript submission system.

Peer Review

Indian Journal of Pathology and Oncology rely on double-blind Peer review to assess the quality of the manuscript to be published. Independent researchers in the relevant research areas assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity, and significance to help editors determine whether a manuscript should be published in the journal. Journal follows a double-blind review process, in which the author identities are undisclosed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. Journal follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on the Peer Review Process can be found and Ethical Guidelines for the reviewer.

Conflicts of Interest

Indian Journal of Pathology and Oncology require the authors sign a disclosure form at the time of manuscript submission. Authors are expected to disclose any conflict or financial interest impacting the outcome of the study in which authors or any employment, consultation, ownership, honorarium, patent application, testimony, etc. are involved. Any project funded by the industry must pay special attention to the full declaration of funder involvement. If there is no role, please state sponsors have no role in the design, execution, recognition, or writing of the study. If the manuscript is accepted, the Conflict of Interest information will be communicated in a published statement. COPE guidelines on Conflict of interest/Competing interests.

Retraction Policy

To prevent any exploitative behaviour, Indian Journal of Pathology and Oncology adheres to the set rules for the retraction policy. Retractions are used to educate readers about inaccurate or deceptive material, copied content, and multiple publications of the same content, fabrication, or manipulation of the original study. For more details, please visit Retraction Policy, Erratum Policy, Corrigendum Policy.

Journal policy on In-House Manuscript Submissions

In-house manuscript submission process contains the work of any editorial board member, are not allowed to be reviewed by that editorial board member and all decisions regarding this manuscript are assigned by an independent editor. In addition, these manuscripts are reviewed by the two external reviewers.

Patient Consent Forms

Concerned Participants should make their own decision about whether they want to participate or continue participating in research. It should be done through a patient consent forms process of informed patient in which personal details are accurately informed of the purpose, methods, benefits, risks, and alternative information to the research. Understand this information and how it relates to their own clinical situation in research or interests, and make a voluntary decision about where to participate or not. A statement to the effect that such consent had been obtained must be considered in the Material and Methods section of your manuscript. If necessary the Editors may request a copy of consent forms.

Ethics Committee Permission

All research and studies that involve the human need to have approval for the study from the respective Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the human studies. These guidelines may vary from country to country and country to specific guidelines need to be followed. The IRB number and protocol number should be stated in the manuscript.

If World Medical Association (WMA) the Declaration of Helsinki ethical principles for medical research are involving human subject were followed, they should be stated in the method section of the manuscript. Visit WMA Declaration Policy.

Any study involving the animals for research should have approval of the protocol from the Institutional committee on the animal sources where the procedures followed in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on experimentation.

We follow the latest Core Practices applicable in publishing scholarly study for editors and journal publisher and institutions as outlined by COPE Core Practices.

Allegations of misconduct

Authorship and contributorship

Complaints and appeals

Conflicts of interest / Competing interests

Data and reproducibility

Ethical oversight

Intellectual property

Journal management

Peer review processes

Post-publication discussions and corrections

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Editor Responsibilities

Publication Decisions: The editors are responsible for deciding on accepting, rejecting or modification requests to the manuscript. In some instances, the editors may require multiple rounds of reviews and modifications. The editors communicated review results in a timely decision and were always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and maintain the integrity of the academic record. The editor reserves the right to edit, clarify or shorten the manuscript as deemed necessary.

Fair Review Process: The editor's decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based only on the papers importance, originality and clarity, and the study relevance to the journal. The editor must ensure that each manuscript submitted to the journal is reviewed for its intellectual content without regards to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. The decisions will be based on the paper's importance, originality, clarity, and relevance to the journal's scope.

Confidentiality: The editor and editorial staff always ensure that information regarding manuscripts submitted by the authors is kept confidential.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: The editor and members of the editorial board of the journal shall not use unpublished material disclosed in a submitted manuscript for his/her own research without the author’s explicit written consent.

Relations with Authors: Editors should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish, recognising the journal and sections within journals with different aims and standards. The guideline should be regularly updated and should refer or link. Editors should not reverse decisions to accept submission unless serious problems are identified with the submission.

Authors Responsibilities

Publication guidelines: Authors must follow the submission guidelines of the journal.

All authors have to contribute significantly to the research and statements of all data in the articles are real and authentic. Authors must ensure that the work they are submitting as theirs is entirely original. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere. Authors will appropriately cite or quote the work and words of others. Authors sign a declaration stating that the manuscript and the illustrations within are original, or that he/she has taken all necessary steps to avoid breach of copyright.

Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. Submitting the same paper to more than one journal constitutes unethical publishing practice. All authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research. The author submitting the manuscript to the journal ensures that all contributing co-authors and no uninvolved person(s) are included in the author list.

Authors must notify the editors of any conflicts of interest that may be construed to influence the manuscript. Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes at any point in time if the author(s) discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in submitted manuscript.

Reviewers Responsibilities

Confidentiality: Reviewers must keep all manuscripts received confidential. Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such, they must not be shown to or discussed with others and articles should be treated confidentially.

Objectives and Standards: Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.

Conflicts of Interest: Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative and other relationships or connections with any of the authors, associated institutions and companies with the paper(s).

Promptness: In the event that a reviewer feels it is not possible for his/her to complete review of manuscript within the stipulated time he/she should notify the editor in a timely manner and withdraw from the review process.

Acknowledgement of sources: Reviewers must ensure that authors have cited all relevant published work referred to the paper in the endnotes and bibliography. Reviewers will bring to the editors’ attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript and any other published or unpublished content. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in review.

Review evaluation: Reviewers evaluate manuscripts based on content without regard to the authors’ race, age, gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, citizenship, political orientation or social class.

Publisher Responsibilities

Publishers should provide practical support to the editor and executive editorial board, so they can follow the COPE Code of conduct for Journal and ensure the autonomy of editorial decisions and protect intellectual property copyright.

Always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.

Maintain the integrity of the academic record and preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards.

Committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research and ensures accessibility by partnering with organizations and maintaining our own digital archives. For details on Innovative archiving policy, Please click here: https://www.ipinnovative.com/guidelines/publication/digital-achieving/64

Ensure that good practice is maintained to the standards defined above.

All research manuscripts and other types are subjected to thorough peer-review, usually by at least two external peer-reviewers. After initial scrutiny by the journal editors for suitability in the journal, the editor will invite appropriate independent reviewers with sufficient and specific areas of expertise. The editor decision is made based on these reviewer reports, which are made available to the authors upon decision. Where the editor of the journal is an author is the submission, adequate steps are taken to ensure blinding the editor from the submission during peer-review. Further information about the journal's specific model of peer-review is found on the journal’s information pages.All research manuscripts and other types are subjected to thorough peer-review, usually by at least two external peer-reviewers. After initial scrutiny by the journal editors for suitability in the journal, the editor will invite appropriate independent reviewers with sufficient and specific areas of expertise. The editor decision is made based on these reviewer reports, which are made available to the authors upon decision. Where the editor of the journal is an author is the submission, adequate steps are taken to ensure blinding the editor from the submission during peer-review.
Further information about the journal's specific model of peer-review is found on the journal’s information pages.

Penalty

Duplicate Submission: If duplicate submission was found or noticed from other sources, the editorial board should check the status. If the duplicate submission was confirmed as an internal thing, then the following actions must be imposed. Review process will be terminated, the reason should be sent to reviewers, editorial board, authors and corresponding authors and all authors’ names will be marked as black listed, and these authors cannot submit any manuscript to these journals for another three years.

Duplicate Publication: If duplicate publication is found or noticed from other sources, the editorial board should check the status. If the duplicate publication is confirmed as intentional, this should be reported to editors, authors etc.