Journal Policies
Editorial Policies
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
JNCI Cancer Spectrum is committed to supporting and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in our editorial practices and published content on cancer research. Please visit the Journal’s DE&I page for our official DE&I statement and more information.
Ethics
The Journal expects that authors will observe high standards with respect to publication ethics. By submitting your manuscript to the Journal, it is understood that it is an original manuscript, is unpublished work, and is not under consideration elsewhere. The following practices are unacceptable: falsification or fabrication of data; plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors’ own work, in whole or in part, without proper citation; misappropriation of the work of others such as omission of qualified authors or of information regarding financial support. Manuscripts may be checked for originality using iThenticate software at any time, but all revised submissions are checked as part of standard journal procedure as part of the CrossCheck initiative to detect and prevent plagiarism.
More information about CrossCheck is available.
The Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with the appropriate COPE guidelines, which may include contacting authors’ institutions and funding agencies. If you have a concern please contact the Editorial Office ([email protected] ).
All research published in our Journal must have been conducted according to international and local guidelines. For more information on specific requirements for human and animal subjects, see “Ethical Research Requirements.”
If an author has been sanctioned by the Office of Research Integrity of the U.S. Public Health Service, the manuscript will be returned unless the author affirms that the research described is unrelated to the matter for which the author was sanctioned.
Authorship
The Journal follows the precepts of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (See "ICMJE Recommendations".) Please note that all authors will be contacted to verify their authorship at submission. To ensure prompt processing, please provide the current contact information of all authors when submitting the manuscript.
All authors listed on the manuscript should have contributed significantly to the experimental design, its implementation, or analysis and interpretation of the data. All authors should have been involved in the writing of the manuscript at draft and any revision stages and have read and approved the final version. All authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work, such that questions related to its accuracy or integrity are appropriately investigated and resolved. Anyone who made major contributions to the writing of the manuscript should be listed as an author (e.g. “ghost writing” is prohibited by the Journal).
Only one author can be designated as the corresponding author. Authors are welcome to include a footnote designating that multiple authors contributed equally to the work on the title page.
The Journal requires the corresponding author to indicate the contributions of each author using the contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT) in the Notes section of the manuscript.
Any other individuals who made less substantive contributions to the experiment or the writing of the manuscript should be listed in the “Notes Section” under the “Acknowledgments.” All individuals named as contributors in the Notes must provide written documentation that they consent to have their names listed. If the authors wish to thank or acknowledge any individual person by name in the “Acknowledgements,” they must provide written documentation that they consent to have their name listed.
We encourage authors of biomarker studies and authors of basic research studies to either include a biostatistician as a co-author when designing the study or to invite a biostatistician to review the manuscript and to acknowledge this review in the Notes section.
Many large collaborative studies are organized under a group name which represents all the participants. All manuscripts must have at least one named individual as an author. Authors who wish to acknowledge the umbrella group from which the data originate should first list the author(s) of the manuscript and follow this with 'on behalf of the GROUP NAME'. If necessary, the names of the participants may be listed in the Notes section.
For manuscripts with more than 50 authors, the author list on the first page will include the first 49 and last author, unless the production or editorial teams are notified otherwise about order and inclusion within the truncated list. The full list of authors and their affiliations will be listed in the Notes section. A footnote will be added below the author list in these cases to direct readers to the Notes to see the full author list and affiliations. All individuals named as contributors in the Notes must provide written documentation that they consent to have their names listed.
Authors should submit manuscripts to the Journal only if the authors and their institutions are willing to adhere to Journal policies concerning confidentiality and prepublication press activities.
ORCID
JNCI Cancer Spectrum requires submitting authors to provide an ORCID identifier at submission to the journal.
More information on ORCID and the benefits of using an ORCID identifier is available.
If you do not already have an ORCID identifier, you can register for free via the ORCID website.
Peer Review
This journal uses single-anonymous peer review. JNCI Cancer Spectrum employs a process of rigorous yet rapid review of submitted manuscripts so that findings of high scientific and medical interest can be published with minimum delay. The Journal welcomes original submissions as well as those manuscripts offered transfer from JNCI. The Journal encourages submission of reports of randomized controlled clinical trials and will provide expedited review of such manuscripts upon request.
Review of manuscripts is conducted by the Editors and Editorial Board, with the assistance of external reviewers. Authors should not include review comments from submission at other journals (unless transferred from JNCI) with their submission to JNCI Cancer Spectrum. The Journal will not consider such reviews during our review of any manuscript. The Editors initially review all submitted manuscripts and, whenever possible, respond to authors within 1 week regarding any paper that is judged to be of insufficient priority for further consideration. Scientific papers of high interest will be sent out for external review by a minimum of 2 reviewers. Manuscripts containing statistical analyses will be reviewed by an additional statistical reviewer. Authors will be notified of acceptance, rejection, or need for revision as soon as the external reviews are available.
When submitting revisions, authors must follow all instructions in the Manuscript Checklist (save the form to your computer locally, as it is interactive). Please note that authors are required to upload a completed checklist with the revised submission and a point-by-point response to the comments from the Reviewers and Editors. A “tracked changes version” of the revised manuscript in which all changes from the original have been clearly indicated (eg, using any of the following: the track changes tool; comments in the margins; highlighting; underlined, strikethrough, color, and/or bold font) must be included with the submission of any revised manuscript to aid reviewers and editors during review. The revised manuscript will not be considered until all co-authors have verified authorship and completed the authorship questionnaire, all required files have been uploaded, and all formatting and style requirements have been met in the revised manuscript. Please note that the Journal cannot advise you on new experiments or analyses that may be required to address the comments from the reviewers. Such decisions are the responsibility of the authors. However, if the comments from the reviewers are incomplete, ambiguous, or contradictory, or you have questions about JNCI Cancer Spectrum style and formatting requirements, please feel free to contact the Editorial Office at[email protected] . No files related to a revised manuscript will be reviewed until the manuscript has been officially submitted.
Acceptance is contingent on author submission of complete and consistent data, accurate reference list, and conclusions consistent with the results demonstrated in the study. Inconsistencies and inaccuracies found after acceptance may warrant return of the manuscript for resubmission. The decision to publish a manuscript is solely the responsibility of the Editors. Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of the publisher or the Editors.
Maintaining Confidentiality
The Journal holds all submitted manuscripts in confidence during the submission and publication process, releasing them only on an as-needed basis to individuals (e.g., peer reviewers, Editorial Board members) who agree to maintain that confidentiality. When questioned about an alleged unpublished manuscript, it is our policy to neither confirm nor deny its existence.
It is imperative that all authors – corresponding author, co-author(s), as well as invited editorialists – and their institutions maintain confidentiality about submitted manuscripts until the publication date. If there is a legitimate need to disclose data during the publication process (e.g., in grant proposals, to congressional committees, in citations), an author must discuss the matter with the Journal’s Scientific Managing Editor at [email protected] before making a disclosure.
Covid-19 Rapid Review Initiative
JNCI Cancer Spectrum is participating in the cross-publisher COVID-19 Rapid Review Initiative, facilitating faster peer review for manuscripts relating to COVID-19. As per the guidelines set forth in the initiative for publishers and editors, COVID-19 related submissions which pass editorial triage will be encouraged to deposit their manuscript in a relevant preprint server. Preprint servers include, but are not limited to bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, OSF Preprints, SciELO Preprints, SSRN, etc, depending on research scope. If you have already posted your manuscript in a preprint server, please state at submission where your manuscript has been deposited. Comments on preprints will be considered during the editorial review process. Because the Journal aims to facilitate the stewardship of FAIR data and software code sharing underlying prioritized COVID-19 manuscripts, a data availability statement is required in these submissions.
Previously Published Material
All manuscripts are considered for publication with the clear understanding that their contents have not been previously published; abstracts and papers presented at scientific meetings and published as part of the proceedings are excepted, but copies must accompany the manuscript submission. Failure to submit all related abstracts and manuscripts will be cause for rejection, even if the failure is discovered after an acceptance letter is mailed. If there is any doubt about whether a manuscript qualifies as related, it is best to submit it.
The Journal strongly discourages authors from the practice of fragmented reporting of aspects of a single investigation. Authors submitting a manuscript that is but one of a number of existing or planned manuscripts related to a single study must include a statement submitted with the manuscript that (a) so identifies the manuscript and (b) justifies the use of the fragmented approach. Authors must describe in the cover letter the scope of each planned related manuscript. The submitted manuscript itself must clearly explain and justify the fragmented approach and reveal the full extent of the investigation.
Written permission from the following parties should be submitted with the manuscript, as appropriate: (a) those named in acknowledgments who have been credited with substantive scientific contributions to the work and (b) one author of each work cited in the manuscript as a personal communication, unpublished data, or a manuscript in preparation, submitted for publication, or in press.
Permissions
Authors submitting manuscripts should avoid the use of copyrighted material (eg, original, minimally altered, or partial versions of tables and illustrations). If the use of such material is unavoidable, authors must obtain written permission from the copyright holder for use by the Journal and Oxford University Press in print form, microfiche, and all electronic formats. This written permission must accompany the manuscript submission. Permission from the author of the original material is also required. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies.
Preprint Policy
You retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (also known as a preprint) available through various channels. Making an Author’s Original Version available does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If your paper is accepted, you will need to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI. For details, see our Author Self-Archiving policy page.
Author Self Archiving and Public Access
JNCI Cancer Spectrum has a NIH Portfolio Agreement with PubMed Central (PMC). Oxford University Press will automatically deposit to PMC, upon publication in an Issue, the Version of Record of all Open Access articles and manuscripts that acknowledge funding from the NIH, Wellcome Trust, CIHR, or HHMI. Authors who are funded by other organizations that require deposit in PMC or require that a manuscript be deposited before its Issue is published should refer to the information given on the NCBI Submission Methods page, and should post their Accepted Manuscript to the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system.
You may self-archive versions of your work on your own webpages, on institutional webpages, and in other repositories. If you want more information about the reuse rights you retain if you publish with us, please visit our Author Self Archiving Policy page.
Conflict of Interest
Authors
All authors are required to report conflicts of interest (COIs) related to the study at submission, using a modified version of the ICMJE COI disclosure form (see “ICMJE Conflicts of Interest” on the ICMJE website) that will be sent to each co-author after submission. The corresponding author will be asked to submit their statements as part of the submission process. In addition, a complete summary of all author disclosures, or a statement that no conflicts exist if that is the case, must be included in the disclosures section of the “Notes” at the end of the submitted manuscript file. The Journal requires the written disclosure section of the Notes to match the COI forms submitted by each author to the Journal via the submission site. Editors will have access to the completed COI forms when evaluating a manuscript.
Authors will be asked to disclose: 1) any financial interest in or arrangement with a company whose product was used in a study or is referred to in a Review, MiniReview, opinion piece, or letter, 2) any financial interest in or arrangement with a competing company, and 3) any other financial connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated—including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition. If the manuscript is published, such information should be communicated in the “Notes” following the text and references.
Reviewers and Editors
Reviewers and Editors are asked when they evaluate manuscripts whether they have a conflict of interest and are requested to decline to review if they feel they have a conflict. Editors will take declared conflicts into consideration when evaluating peer reviews.
Authors of any submitted manuscript who also serve as an Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor, or Associate Editor are not allowed to be involved in the editorial review or decisions on publication for their own manuscript. Authors are asked to include a COI statement in the accepted, published manuscript stating that the author, who is an Editor-in-Chief/Deputy Editor/Associate Editor and a co-author on the manuscript, was not involved in the editorial review or decision to publish the manuscript. This statement should be included in the Disclosures section of the Notes.
Invited Editorialists
Potential Editorialists will be required to complete a Conflict of Interest disclosure form at invitation. Invitations may be withdrawn to write an editorial if the Editors decide that potential conflicts are substantial.
A detailed definition of conflicts of interests is available.
Appeals
To appeal an editorial decision, please contact the Editorial Office. With your message, please provide strong rationale or new data/information in response to the comments in the decision letter for why they Editors should reconsider their decision. All appeals will be dealt with through the Editorial Office by email only. Under no circumstances should authors contact our Editors directly regarding manuscripts. Every appeal will receive a response from the Editorial Office. Please do not resubmit your manuscript in the interim.
Media Coverage
If your manuscript has the potential to be featured in a news story, please reach out to your institutional press office to discuss the possibility of issuing a press release. You can search for the public relations, publicity, or external relations department at your university or institution. You may share the manuscript with them and ask if they are willing to promote your work, provided that they respect the publication date. Please reach out to them as early as possible to allow time to coordinate the publication of the article and the press release.
To set an embargo date for your article, contact the production team at [email protected] as soon as possible after receiving the letter that your manuscript has been sent to production for publication. Include the manuscript number and desired embargo date for the article in the email.
Post-publication Changes
Corrections
We will only make changes to published articles if the publication record is seriously affected by the academic accuracy of the published information. Changes to published articles will not be made without a formal correction notice. Authors' corrections to Supplementary Data are made only in exceptional circumstances (for example major errors that compromise the conclusion of the study). For the removal and correction of published content we follow the COPE guidelines on retractions. To request corrections to published manuscripts please contact [email protected]. Requests for corrections should state ‘Correction notice request’ and the article ID in the subject line. Please also include as an email attachment the pdf of the article marked up with the requested amendments using the ‘Comment’ feature in Adobe Acrobat.
Details on changes to published articles can be found here.
Post-publication Name Changes
JNCI Cancer Spectrum and our publisher, Oxford University Press, are committed to working with authors who wish to update their name and/or pronouns following article publication and will make such changes upon request. To update their article(s), authors should contact [email protected] directly. OUP will respect authors’ privacy throughout the process and will:
- update the metadata associated with the article(s) on the Oxford Academic platform
- update the editable, digital versions of the relevant article(s), including any author bio and disclosure statements
- make the changes without requiring a correction notice, though authors may opt to proceed with one
- resupply the new metadata and updated article(s) to indexing and discovery services, which may have their own policies regarding such changes.
