Editorial Policies

Overview

21st Century Pathology editing policies are developed in accordance with the considerations, counsel, and suggestions of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE). When a manuscript is submitted to 21st Century Pathology, it is assumed that all authors have read, approved of, and adhered to the journal's rules.

21st Century Pathology Review Process

The Managing Editor (ME) ranks authors who submit manuscripts with a preference section indication according to the total H-index, patent index, prototypes, total impact Factor normalised by the average number of co-authors, author position, and adherence to 21st Century Pathology’s editorial policy, whenever this is feasible.

Editor-in-Chief (EIC): Verifies author rankings, suggested sections, and article titles' applicability before assigning articles for review to the appropriate editorial board member or to the ME, who selects peer reviewers from a list of experts in the chosen fields that EIC has already put together and that the ME is continuously updating at the request of the Editorial Board.

Editorials authored by the editor-in-chief or by members of the editorial board do not require external peer review; instead, they only need the editor-in-chief's approval. However, the 21st Century Pathology standard peer review procedure will be applied to any original research articles or reviews written by the editorial board or advisory board members.

Plagiarism Detection

Plagiarism is becoming increasingly prevalent in scientific publishing, and open access is no exception. The editors of the journals take innovative steps to avoid, detect, and address plagiarism in published articles. 21st Century Pathology has implemented strict COPE guidelines to detect plagiarism, and any cases involving significant plagiarism will be handled in accordance with the guidelines, with the editor having full authority to notify the author's institution.

21st Century Publisher is a CrossCheck member, and we screen-submitted articles for originality using the iThenticate plagiarism detection system.

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

• Taking text, images, or data from other sources and copying it
• Repurposing text from previous publications
• Enhancing, relocating, or removing specific features from an image
• Misrepresenting any information or image by grouping or ungrouping images, adjusting brightness, contrast, or colour balance

Authors should be aware that manuscripts found to have plagiarised content during the pre-screening or peer review processes will be rejected immediately. If this is discovered after the article has been published, 21st Century Pathology will have the option to retract the article or publish a correction. 21st Century Pathology reserves the right to notify authors' institutions of any plagiarism discovered before or after publication.

Duplicate Publication

In terms of duplicating publications, 21st Century Pathology adheres to ICMJE policies. The author must declare and cite any potential overlapping publications during the initial submission of a manuscript, which can be uploaded as additional supporting documents. If the editors request it, any unpublished or "in press" manuscript should be made available. The manuscript, or substantial portions of it, should not have been previously formally published in any journal or other citable form. Any exceptions are entirely at the editor's discretion and must be justified and declared by the author at the time of submission.

Authorship

Authorship is the state of being an author, in which one makes actual intellectual contributions to the completion of a research project and bears responsibility and accountability for the published work.

According to the ICMJE recommendations, authorship credit must include all of the following:

• Significant contributions to the work's conception, design, and execution, as well as data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation
• Creating or revising the article
• Final approval of the published version
• Acceptance of responsibility for all aspects of the work, including ensuring that any questions about the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are adequately investigated and resolved

Furthermore, each author should be capable of recognizing which co-authors are accountable for specific aspects of the work done, and all those who are eligible should be listed.

When the work was done by a large team, collaboration centre, or association, the author list should include the individuals whose contributions met the above criteria.

Along with the manuscript submitted to, 21st Century Pathology , the author is required to submit a contributory statement. In this section, the author should clearly state his or her contribution to the work, such as participation in the design and planning, actual execution of the experiment, generation of results, analyses and reporting, preparation of figures/tables, writing and preparing the manuscript, and so on.

Acknowledging Contributors

All contributors who do not fulfil the requirements for authorship should be acknowledged in the manuscript's’ Acknowledgements' section. They include the names of people who provided technical assistance, guidance in scientific writing and manuscript preparation, financial or material support, and the institution/department head who provided access/permissions, among other things. The responsibility for obtaining permission from individuals whose names appear in the acknowledgement part rests with the author.

Changes in Authorship

Once a manuscript has been submitted, any changes to the authorship (for example, additions, deletions, changes in order of names, or changes in contributions) must be authorized by all of the manuscript's authors. If the changes are suitable and appropriate, the editor will request a confirmation letter from the corresponding author that all authors have agreed to the change in authorship. Additionally, the editor has the right to get in touch with any or all authors to ask them if they've agreed to the shift in authorship.

Competing Interests

When the authors' interpretation and evaluation of data or the presentation of important information may be influenced by their financial or personal connections to other people or organizations, there is a conflict of interest.

21st Century Pathology has mandated that all authors include a declaration at the end of their submitted manuscript that details all financial and non-financial "competing interests" they may have. In the manuscript, the authors should indicate whether they have any such "competing interests" or not: The authors affirm that they do not have any conflicts of interest. If 21st Century Pathology discovers any unreported competing interests after a manuscript has been published, 21st Century Pathology has the option to reject/retract the manuscript or to publish a formal correction, as necessary. A competing interest must be disclosed by editors and evaluators, or they will be disqualified from participating in the peer review process.

Financial competing interests

Financial competing interests include (but are not limited to):

• Receiving a salary, reimbursement, grant, funding, or consulting fee from a business that owns or is in possession of patents covering the subject matter of the submitted piece.
• Holding stock or a board seat in a business or organisation that stands to profit or lose financially from the publication of a piece, now or in the future.
• Possessing or pursuing patents covering the topic or substance of the submitted manuscript.

Non-financial competing interests

Competing non-financial interests include (but are not limited to) professional (academic and intellectual) and personal (ideological) interests.

Commercial organizations

To ensure that publications are produced in a responsible and ethical manner, authors from industries/companies (pharmaceutical, medical, biotechnology, agricultural, oil and gas, manufacturing, engineering sectors, etc.) or other business organizations should declare any competing interests on submission.

Please get in touch with the Editor if, after reading the aforementioned rules, you're still not sure whether you have a competing interest.

Copyright and Licensing

Open Access

21st Century Pathology is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal, which means that all articles are immediately available to all users for free. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of the articles for any lawful purpose without seeking prior approval from the publisher or author.

This is consistent with the definition of open access provided by the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI).

Open access (OA) is a recent and popular advancement in the publishing industry in which peer-reviewed research and manuscript content are made freely accessible to everyone for use over the Internet almost immediately after acceptance for publication. OA accelerates the dissemination of scholarly research to the scientific community by allowing anyone to use it for free after citing the author. Thus, in open access journals, the author(s) are the rightful owners of the article's copyright.

Author Rights:

21st Century Pathology is dedicated to ensuring that authors have a clear grasp of their rights and obligations. Our knowledgeable editorial policies enable authors to easily comply with the open access requirements of their respective schools, governments, and funding agencies. We also assist authors in understanding open licenses.

To work we post, 21st Century Pathology applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Users are permitted to reproduce, share, transmit, and modify an article under the terms of this licence, as long as the author is acknowledged. Both commercial and non-commercial reuse is allowed under the CC BY licence.

A Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) licence guarantees that the author keeps all copyright in their creations.

Government Authors

Manuscripts written or co-written by one or more federal agencies, such as the USA NIH, USA NSF, UK NHS, UK Wellcome Trust, Australia ARC, or European Research Councils, among others, must be submitted with the appropriate signed mandate agreements in accordance with their Employee Procedures (if applicable). These agreements are licenced under the Creative Commons Public Domain licence (CC0), which permits unrestricted distribution and reuse of the article for any lawful purpose.

Images and Figures

To use or print any figures/images that are protected by copyright, authors must have written consent from the copyright holder and properly credit the original source. Only properly attributed reproductions of figures from works released under the Creative Commons Attribution International licence (CC BY 4.0) are permitted.

Publication Fees

The 21st Century Pathology employs an open access model to offer immediate, universal, barrier-free access to all published articles in order to hasten the effect of any potential research findings. The article publication costs are paid from the author's research budget, or by their funding institution or supporting organization in the form of an Article Processing Charge. This is done to make this happen and to offset operational and technical expenses, including those for online hosting, developing and maintaining electronic tools, devices, and systems for peer review management and journal production. archiving, and securing inclusion in indexing databases (APC). 21st Century Pathology will, however, take into account a discount or waiver to the APC on a case-by-case basis because it thinks that financial constraints shouldn't prevent open access publishing.

Peer Review Procedures

Overview

All manuscripts submitted to 21st Century Pathology are subjected to a thorough, competent, and objective peer review procedure. A group of expert reviewers and/or editors decides whether to accept an article by focusing on whether the results and/or conclusions are original and contribute to the field.

All papers submitted to 21st Century Pathology are subject to a double-blind peer review procedure in which neither the reviewer's nor the author's identity is revealed.

Each 21st Century Pathology manuscript goes through the following stages during the peer review process:

• Prior to being assigned to an Editor for review, all submissions are first examined by the journal's internal editorial staff to ensure compliance with its editorial policies.
• The Editor chooses whether the manuscript needs to be evaluated by reviews from qualified outside specialists or reviewers. The bulk of submissions are evaluated by two external reviewers, but it is up to the handling Editor to decide how many reviews are necessary.
• The editor decides whether to accept or reject a manuscript after reading the reviews or whether to ask the author to make changes in light of the reviewers' suggestions. The authors will have 21 days to submit the revised manuscript again if minor or major revisions are the verdict.

There is no external peer review of editorials written by the editor-in-chief, assistant editors, or other editorial board members. However, any original research papers or reviews written by an editorial board member will be subject to the journal's standard peer review procedure.

Indexing

The criteria for inclusion may vary from service to service, and 21st Century Pathology is presently in negotiations with a number of indexing and abstracting service providers.

Confidentiality

All papers submitted to 21st Century Pathology are handled confidentially by editors and reviewers.

Article Promotion

According to 21st Century Pathology , the author(s) is/are always the best advocate and/or defender of their work. In order to foster an active potential conversation that can be helpful to the scientific community by having similar views and interests, 21st Century Pathology always encourages authors to disseminate their published articles and react to any comments on the article. Several methods could be used for distribution:

• discussion on the journal's home page or story page's comments section
• placing relevant authors on university or library campuses; the topic; and public repositories 
• posting the paper on scientific blogs and scientific networking sites like Research Gate
• the publication of the story on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Policy on Acceptance of Advertisements

Any advertisement submitted to 21st Century Pathology must receive editorial clearance. Our editorial policy states that advertising should not appear to take up the majority of the newspaper website.

The journal's policy is to accept advertising for goods that its readers will find useful in both their professional and personal lives, subject to editorial approval. Advertising content should also receive regulatory body approval before being taken into consideration by the journal editorial team.

Advertisements that are "legal, pertinent to the journal's scope, and consistent with current suggestions and guidelines" will be accepted by the 21st Century Pathology.

Journal Revenue Sources and Funding

21st Century Publisher is a limited liability business that supports itself independently and does not receive money from any organization, society, or government. As a result, the journal's operations are entirely supported by the Article Processing Charges (APC) that writers pay. The APC is collected to pay for operational and technical costs, such as those associated with online hosting, the creation and upkeep of electronic tools, devices, and systems for managing peer reviews and producing journals, as well as the archiving of articles and securing their inclusion in indexing databases.

21st Century Publisher will, however, take into account a discount or waiver to the APC on a case-by-case basis because it thinks that financial constraints shouldn't prevent open access publishing.

21st Century Publisher gets its money from the sources listed below:

• Subscriptions to journals from businesses, organisations, and individuals
• Journal paper reprints
• Article processing charges
• Delegate costs for a 21st Century Publisher-organized meeting

Press Releases

The Editor-in-Chief may occasionally choose exceptional manuscripts that have been approved for publication for a press release. If a press release is being considered for the manuscript, the associated author will be notified. The author will be asked to approve the content before the press release is written after it has been accepted. Authors should make sure that activities are coordinated with the 21st Century Pathology Press Office if an author's institution, group, or funder wishes to issue their own press release.

Data Sharing

A data sharing statement is required from authors when sending a manuscript online. The statement should specify whether any unpublished study data are accessible, as well as where, who, and how they can be acquired. The data availability statement will be included in the final paper if the article is accepted for publication.

For the purposes of data collection and recording, it is the author's duty to follow the rules in their respective fields. The writers are urged by the 21st Century Pathology to choose reliable digital repositories before depositing their data there. All data and associated metadata linked to the manuscript must be deposited by the authors in a single publicly accessible repository, and they must also include the data set, accession numbers, and/or digital object identifiers in the data availability statement when submitting their manuscript. Small data sets in manuscripts can be uploaded by the authors as supplementary files when submitting the article online.

In certain circumstances where the data used in a manuscript is restricted by a patent or trademark control and thus cannot be made public, the author is required to provide an analysis of public data that validates the conclusions stated in the manuscript. If the authors used data from a third party (i.e., if they did not gather the data themselves), they are required to correctly cite the source from which the data was obtained. The 21st Century Pathology reserves the right to make the necessary corrections, get in touch with the author's group and/or funding agency, or retract the publication if any inconsistencies in the aforementioned guidelines are discovered after an article has been accepted or published. Readers who are having trouble locating materials or accessing data are urged to get in touch with the journal's editorial office for more information on how to cite sources of data.

Disclaimer Notice

The opinions and statements in 21st Century Pathology that are cited are those of the author(s) and may not represent those of the journal or editor. While 21st Century Pathology makes every effort to ensure that the information in their journals is original and accurate, 21st Century Pathology does not guarantee that the information is true or complete and is not liable for any mistakes, omissions, or misleading content. Similarly, 21st Century Pathology accepts no responsibility for any injury or damage to persons or property caused by product liability, negligence, or otherwise, or from the use of any methods, techniques, products, instructions, or ideas contained in any of the published articles. 21st Century Pathology accepts no responsibility or warranty for any investigational reports, observations, discussions, and recommendations regarding medical procedures, diagnostic techniques, treatment procedures, medication types, and drug dosages, which are the sole responsibility of the authors. Before undergoing any treatment procedures, consumers should consult with their own health professionals about their medical condition.

Appeals and Complaints

In the event that their manuscript is rejected, authors have the right to appeal, which should be based on the scientific content and its suitability for publication in 21st Century Pathology . All appeals must be sent to the editor-in-chief of the publication within 10 days of receiving a decision. On the appeal, the Editor-in-Chief's decision is definitive. Authors, reviewers, and users should get in touch with the publisher if they have any unresolved grievances or appeals.

Concerns

Readers and writers are urged to get in touch with the editorial office if they have any complaints or concerns.

Article Correction & Retraction Policy

21st Century Pathology articles are published exactly as written. However, published articles can be modified, corrected, replaced, retracted, or removed in rare cases. To change a published article, the 21st Century Pathology will follow the general principle outlined below.

Article withdrawal: Only before the article is published online can it be withdrawn (in press). The reasons for withdrawal might include (but are not limited to) duplicate submission, incorrect authorship claim, data error, and plagiarism.

Article correction/replacement: If an error or inaccuracy in reported data is found, a change in authorship and/or affiliation is required, or significant changes to the manuscript are found after the article has been released online and the Letter to the Editor option is not available, then the article may be corrected or replaced. If the changes are significant, a processing fee will be assessed, and the original version of the article will be archived.

Article retraction: Article retraction, as advised by an author/editor/publisher, is a rare occurrence in which the findings/interpretations/conclusions of a published article are discovered to be misleading, proven to contain falsified data, defamatory, or violate other professional ethical standards (such as plagiarism, duplicate submissions, incorrect authorship claims, and unethical methods or research). A published article will be removed only in exceptional circumstances and usually only for legal reasons affecting the publisher, editor-in-chief, or author (s).

The Editor-in-Chief will make the final decision in all of the aforementioned circumstances. Once a decision is made, it will be made available to all readers as a note or a new screen in the online version of the manuscript, along with an effective date and reason (correction, replacement, retraction, or removal). For any change or modification, all authors must provide written consent and submit the requirement to the Editor-in-Chief. If an article is retracted or removed, the processing fees will not be refunded.

Handling Author Misconduct, Plagiarism and Redundant Publication

21st Century Pathology adhered to the principles of COPE, a forum for peer-reviewed journal editors and publishers to explain all aspects of publication ethics. The COPE code of conduct and best practise guidelines will be followed by the journal.

Research Misconduct

All allegations of misconduct in research or publication are taken seriously. We will vigorously examine allegations and retain the right, if necessary, to contact authors institutions, funders, or regulatory bodies.

In accordance with COPE guidelines, the EIC of the journal will always be the first point of contact, and the EIC will ask for an explanation from all affected parties. If an allegation is levelled against the Editor or a reviewer, we recommend contacting the publisher for further investigation.

Before making a recommendation, the EIC will seek a response from the original author(s) or copyright holder(s) if a third party approaches the journal with a plagiarism allegation. 

The Editor will follow the COPE flowcharts and will not be swayed by outside influences. Any decisions that are made will be unbiased and objective.

We will follow the COPE in cases of suspected or alleged misconduct. If we discover conclusive evidence of misconduct, we will take corrective action, including but not limited to issuing a correction or retraction.

Editors will always maintain a neutral tone while acting with integrity and educating where possible.

If you have any worries regarding possible misconduct, please contact the journal's EIC, associate editor, or publisher. Readers who are concerned should not rely solely on posting comments on blogs, social media, or other third-party websites to alert us to their concerns. but should instead contact the journal directly.

Plagiarism

21st Century Pathology screens submitted manuscripts for originality using Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate). If the software raises any concerns, we will conduct a follow-up investigation.

The manuscript will be rejected if plagiarism is discovered during the peer review process. If plagiarism is discovered after the paper has been published, we will issue a correction or retract the manuscript, as appropriate. If the editor has concerns about a publication after reviewing the evidence, he or she will seek a response from the authors. If the response is unsatisfactory, the editors will contact the author's head of department/employer and have the option of contacting the author's funding organization about plagiarism discovered before or after publication.

When there is a dual publication, an explanation of the circumstances will be published in both journals, along with any "retractions" that may be necessary if the work turns out to be fraudulent.

Redundant Publication

Only unpublished article entries will be taken into consideration by 21st Century Pathology Journal. Speaking at conferences, submitting abstracts, or posting unreviewed manuscripts on preprint servers like arXiv and bioRxiv are all acceptable because they do not count as previous publications. Submissions containing material that was previously part of a PhD thesis that was published in accordance with the institution awarding the qualification may also be considered.

Minor overlap or redundancy is sometimes unavoidable. This must always be reported transparently, with proper attribution, and in accordance with copyright requirements.

It is not acceptable to duplicate a published article or have significant overlap/redundancy with another published article. When this occurs, we will adhere to COPE guidelines and consider publishing a notice of redundant publication.

All accusations and suspicions of misconduct are taken seriously by the EIC. If EIC is given strong proof of serious misconduct, he may contemplate informing the employer and notifying the author (s).

Reviewer Instructions

Instructions for Reviewers

For all submitted manuscripts, 21st Century Pathology guarantees a thorough and objective peer review by the subject-matter experts in order to uphold the high standard of the editorial process. The reviewer's summary, which emphasizes the following, serves as the basis for the decision to accept an article:

• The objective of the study or experimental design.
• Appropriate implementation of methods.
• Discussion of results and data analysis.
• Novelty of the findings and conclusions having potential scientific impact.

21st Century Pathology Review Process

• The Managing Editor (ME) ranks authors who submit manuscripts with a preference section indication according to the total H index, patent index, prototypes, total Impact Factor normalised by the average number of co-authors, author position, and adherence to 21st Century Pathology ’s editorial policy, whenever this is feasible.
• Editor-in-Chief (EIC): verifies author ranking, proposed section, and relevance of article title; assigns article for review to a suitable Associate Editor (AE) or Managing Editor (ME); ME selects peer-reviewers from the list of experts in the chosen fields already compiled by the EIC and continually updated by ME upon direction from the Editorial Board and Advisory Board.
• Editorials written by the editor-in-chief or editorial board members are not subjected to external peer review and require only the editor-in-chief's approval. Original research articles and reviews written by an editorial board member, on the other hand, will go through the 21st Century Pathology ’s standard peer review process.
• Following the recommendations of the AE and/or EBM and/or referees, selected papers are eventually accepted by the EIC in terms of adherence to the 21st Century Pathology ’s editorial policies for the submitted papers as defined in the 21st Century Pathology Scope, Aims, and Topics.

Reviewer’s responsibility

• During the peer-review process, the reviewer should remain confidential about the content of the unpublished manuscript and adhere to the highest ethical standards.
• If there is a potential professional or financial conflict of interest, the reviewer should notify the editor.
• Reviewers should provide clear and concise unbiased feedback to authors while avoiding personal criticism or comments about acceptance or rejection. The comments should be constructive and aid the authors in shaping the manuscript into its best possible form.

All articles submitted to 21st Century Pathology are subjected to a double-blind peer review process in which both the reviewer and the author remain anonymous.

As a thank you to the reviewers (because the peer-review process is entirely voluntary), 21st Century Pathology offers a 25% discount on the article processing charge for accepted manuscripts where the reviewer is the corresponding author, if submitted within 18 months of the review process's completion.