Peer Review Model: The review process for APJCC is a single-blind review procedure. This means the authors not being aware of the identity of the reviewers, but reviewers are aware of the identity of the authors.

In the process of submission, authors are invited to suggest potential reviewers for their paper (including address and email).  The reviewers MUST declare a conflict of interest.  The suggested reviewers may or may not participate in the reviewing of the manuscript that they are associated with as suggested reviewers.

The review process: Submitted manuscripts are screened upon receipt to evaluate their relevance to the scope of the journal as well as the degree of novelty.  The editorial team does the initial screening. Submissions that are in line with the scope of the journal and include an acceptable degree of novelty, will undergo a peer review process. The review process includes a review of the manuscript by at least two independent reviewers and one of the author's suggested reviewers (all reviewers must declare a conflict of interest). The recommendation of the reviewers is the basis to decide the fate of the submission. When a decision is reached, it is sent to the authors by email, including the comments of the referees. Possible decisions after review are: accept, minor revisions, major revisions, re-submit, and reject.

If a manuscript is accepted with revision, the author will be notified and the comments of the reviewers will be sent to authors through our editorial management system. The revised manuscript by the author should be accompanied by a detailed reply to reviewers’ comments, and changes performed should be highlighted in the text of the revised manuscript.

Any questions concerning the requested changes/additional work or deadline extension should be addressed to the Editorial Office by email before submission of the revised paper. Please always include the manuscript number in any correspondence and on any documents. Revised manuscripts may be assessed by the editors or returned to the original reviewers for re-evaluation (this is in the reviewer's discretion if he or she wants to see if his/her comments have been met or let the editorial office validate this). The editors maintain the option to reject a paper in a second or third round of revision, if the specific concerns have not been addressed or if the paper still does not meet a high enough level of priority. The final decision to accept or reject a manuscript is based on the editors and reviewers' recommendations.  The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision and reports the decision to the author.

The APJCC always strives to have a timely review process and shorten the process as much as possible; however, the process may take up to two months.

Open Access Policy

 Articles published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Biology are 'open access'. A universally accepted definition of the term is provided in the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing in 2003:

1. The article is universally and freely accessible via the Internet, in an easily readable format and deposited immediately upon publication, without embargo, in a PDF format on the Journal's site 

2. The author(s) or copyright owner(s) irrevocably grant(s) to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce, or disseminate the research article in its entirety or in part, in any format or medium, provided that no substantive errors are introduced in the process, proper attribution of authorship and correct citation details are given, and that the bibliographic details are not changed. If the article is reproduced or disseminated in part, this must be clearly and unequivocally indicated.

Articles in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Biology are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) to ensure the implementation of open access as defined.  

Archiving

The Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Biology's Archive is preserved in PORTICO's repository system. The agreement was signed in 2016 and the APJCB was added to the agreement in May 2017. 

Publication Ethics

APJCB is very sensitive to research misconduct and uses all means available to prevent publishing miscounted research. Though there is no standard definition of research misconduct, the Council of Science Editors defines research misconduct broadly in three categories of action and conduct:

• Mistreatment of research subjects
• Falsification and Fabrication of data
• Piracy and Plagiarism

APJCB uses this definition of misconduct in its dealing with the issue and follows strictly the COPE Flowchart in dealing with research misconduct.  In addition, For each component of the research misconduct, APJCB has many assurance policies as follows 

Protection of human subjects:

APJCB observes the principles governing research on human subjects outlined by the Declaration of Helsinki.  APJCB does not publish manuscripts that do not declare a statement about the protection of human subjects and the acquisition of informed consent when the subject of research is human (as it is required by the Declaration of Helsinki) Normally, the journal requires that a statement is declared that research has been reviewed by an institutional review board (IRB) either in the material method section of the manuscript or in the acknowledgment section of the manuscript. APJCB encourages authors to report the registry number of the IRB in countries where a central registrar of the IRB exists as is the case in the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Falsification and Fabrication of data:

Fabrication is defined as making up data without actually collecting or synthesizing scientific data. Falsification is defined as the manipulation of research material to reach a favorable result. Fabrication and falsification could happen at any stage of research (in the field) up to the publication of the manuscript where a misuse of citation can happen (referencing to a citation when the citation does not support the argument). APJCB tries to identify any kind of fabrication or falsification in all levels of manuscript processing, from initial screening to comprehensive evaluation of a revised manuscript and even after a manuscript has been published. Report of any fabrication and falsification is an ethical duty of our authors, co-authors, reviewers, editors, and readers. In any event of falsification or fabrication, APJCB keeps its right to retract or withdraw the fabricated or falsified article. APJCB strictly follows the COPE flowchart in dealing with fabrication and falsification.

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is defined as the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.  Another category of plagiarism is self-plagiarism when the author publishes his idea, data, and text in different journals when no need for such duplication exists. APJCB uses all means to detect plagiarism. As a matter of quality assurance, a similarity of more than 30 percent in the text of a manuscript will be returned to the author to remove the similarities and reduce the chance of plagiarism.  APJCB strictly follows the COPE flowchart in dealing with plagiarised articles.

APJCB Authorship Consideration and Dispute Management:

APJCB considers an author as a person who has substantially contributed in all stages of research that the manuscript reports its result. On the other hand, all authors who are listed in the manuscript have contributed to the research, and the manuscript was submitted to the journal. There are many different definitions of authorship among different bodies that oversee authorship rights and responsibilities. The COPE defines authorship as “The term authorship can refer to the creator or originator of an idea (eg, the author of the theory of relativity) or the individual or individuals who develop and bring to fruition the product that disseminates intellectual or creative works (eg, the author of a poem or a scholarly article).” The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) bases the authorship on the following four criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved”

APJCB policies in maintaining its high standard of ethics have many provisions that help the editorial to establish the authorship requirement that was defined by COPE or ICMJE. For this, APJCB uses its editorial management system to validate the authorship of a manuscript submitted. APJCB’s initial engagement with authors is through its “Editorial Management System”. The system functionally deals with the corresponding author but informs other authors of any changes or major steps that are taken in the process of submission, review, revision, editing, and final steps of publication. The only means of communication with authors is by email. All listed authors are required to verify their contribution to a submitted manuscript by receiving an email that informs them of the submission and the nature of authorship of the manuscript (author list with the order that is registered in the EMSS). The email clearly validates the contribution of the listed authors in the manuscript. In the case that an author disputes the submitted manuscript or his contribution, the journal returns the manuscript to the corresponding author and asks to resubmit when the dispute is resolved. Any authorship dispute, after the initial step, is managed as the COPE recommends. Authors that may need information on authorship rights and responsibility and the way to handle disputes are referred to the COPE publication on how to handle authorship disputes at (https://publicationethics.org/files/2003pdf12_0.pdf) or to Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors in ICMJE' s website at (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/ ). We expect that all authors listed in a manuscript will receive the journal’s email and read and the content of the email that is provided for the purpose of authorship validation.

Research Involving Animals

APJCB promotes the ethical aspect of research on animals. All research involving animals (no matter large animals or small), must provide evidence of an ethical review board.  The evidence could be a statement indicating that the research has been approved by an independent ethical committee placed either in the material and method section of the manuscript or as an acknowledgment at the end of the manuscript.

In addition, a manuscript submitted to APJCB that involves animals must meet the minimum standard described in ARRIVE guidelines. The guideline consists of information that scientific publications reporting animal experimentation should report. APJCB encourages its author to read through the guideline and try to provide the minimum information that the guideline recommends, especially details of animal welfare, including information about housing, feeding, and steps taken to minimize suffering, including the use of anesthesia and method of sacrifice.   

Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Biology (APJCB ) does not charge any Submission Charges.