Journal of Thyroid Cancer · Editorial Policies
Editorial Policies
The rules JTC applies to every manuscript: how decisions are taken, what authors must declare, how research on patients is handled, and what happens when something is wrong with the published record.
01 · Independence
Who decides, and on what
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Reviewers advise; the decision is the editor’s.
Editorial independence
No fee, membership, service, institutional relationship or editorial position influences the assessment of a manuscript. The editorial office does not discuss decisions with anyone outside the review of that manuscript.
Assignment by subject
Handling editors are assigned by subject rather than by rota, so a manuscript is read by an editor who works in the area it addresses.
Competing interests and recusal
An editor with an institutional, financial or personal interest in a manuscript takes no part in its assessment.
Manuscripts authored by editors
Editors who publish in the journal are handled by another editor, and their authorship is disclosed on the published article. An editor never handles, reviews or decides their own manuscript.
Article processing charges are raised only after acceptance, by a separate administrative process. An editor is not told whether a charge will be paid, waived or discounted, and a decision is never revisited on that basis.
02 · Peer review
How a manuscript is reviewed
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
The model
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
For authors
For double-blind review, remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgments, funding details, institution names, and other identifying information from the reviewer manuscript. Provide identifying information separately in the title-page file or submission form.
For editors
When double-blind review is requested, editors must ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers.
For reviewers
For double-blind manuscripts, reviewers must not attempt to identify the authors. After submitting the review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.
Confidentiality
A submitted manuscript is a confidential document. It is not shown to, or discussed with, anyone outside the review process.
Preprints
Posting a preprint does not preclude submission. Disclose the preprint and any prior dissemination at submission.
03 · Authorship
Authorship and contribution
Who qualifies
Authorship requires substantial contribution to the work, involvement in drafting or revising it, approval of the version submitted, and accountability for its accuracy and integrity. Everyone who meets those conditions is listed; nobody who does not.
Contributions and acknowledgments
Individual contributions may be stated. People who helped without meeting the authorship conditions are acknowledged with their permission.
Changes after submission
Any change to the author list — addition, removal or reordering — requires written agreement from every author, including the one affected.
Duplicate and redundant publication
A manuscript must not be under consideration elsewhere, and must not substantially duplicate work already published. Secondary analyses of a previously reported dataset are acceptable when the relationship is stated.
04 · Ethics
Research on people
Most of what JTC publishes concerns patients. The requirements below are conditions of publication and apply equally to a single case report and to a multicenter cohort.
- Ethics approval
- Research involving people, human material or identifiable data reports the approving ethics committee or institutional review board, and the approval reference where one is issued. Studies exempt from review state the basis for exemption.
- Informed consent
- Report the consent obtained from participants. Case reports and clinical images require documented consent to publish.
- Patient privacy
- Identifying details are removed from text, tables, images and supplementary files unless they are essential to the science and the patient has consented to their publication. A patient is not identifiable from a date, a rare combination of features or an unmasked image.
- Clinical trial registration
- Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.
- Genetic and genomic data
- Consent must cover the use and any deposition of genetic data, and the manuscript must state which repository holds it and under what access conditions.
- Retrospective clinical data
- State the period, the source, the case definition and the ascertainment method, and whether consent was obtained or waived.
05 · Data
Data, images and reporting
Data availability
Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement. The statement names where the data are, or gives the reason they cannot be shared.
Image integrity
Images must not be manipulated in a way that changes what they show. Adjustments applied to an image are applied to the whole image and disclosed. Original files may be requested during review.
Statistical reporting
Report the analysis actually performed, the software, the handling of missing data, and any deviation from a pre-specified plan.
Reporting standards
Use the standard appropriate to the design: CONSORT for randomized trials, STROBE for observational studies, PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and CARE for case reports.
Funding
Every funding source and grant number is declared, together with the funder’s role in the work if any.
Competing interests
Every author declares financial and non-financial competing interests. An absence of competing interests is stated explicitly.
06 · AI
Artificial intelligence
AI cannot be an author
An AI system cannot take responsibility for the work and therefore cannot be an author. Authorship conditions apply to people.
Disclosure by authors
Disclose any use of generative AI in producing the manuscript — what tool, for what purpose, and where in the work. The authors remain responsible for everything submitted, including anything an AI produced.
AI in the research itself
Where AI or machine learning is the method rather than a writing aid, it is reported as a method: data provenance, training and test separation, comparator, validation and limitations.
Reviewers and editors
Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
07 · Integrity
When something is wrong
Concerns are investigated according to COPE guidance, whoever raises them and whenever they arise. The outcome follows the evidence, not the seniority or affiliation of those involved.
Plagiarism and text reuse
Submissions are screened for similarity. A similarity report is assessed in context by an editor; no fixed percentage determines an outcome.
Fabrication and falsification
Allegations are put to the authors, and where appropriate to their institution, which is the body able to investigate the underlying records.
Reviewer and editor misconduct
Breach of confidentiality, undisclosed competing interests or misuse of a submitted manuscript are treated as seriously as author misconduct, and end the individual’s involvement with the journal.
Anonymous concerns
A concern is assessed on its evidence. The journal does not require a person raising it to identify themselves.
08 · The record
Corrections, retractions and notices
- Correction
- Issued where an error affects the record but not the conclusions. It is linked to the article, carries its own DOI, and the original article is annotated. The article is not silently edited.
- Expression of concern
- Issued where a serious question has been raised that cannot yet be resolved — for example while an institution investigates.
- Retraction
- Issued where the findings are unreliable, whether through error or misconduct. The article remains available and is marked retracted, because the record of what was published must stay readable.
- Who may request one
- Authors, readers, reviewers, editors and institutions. The journal acts on the evidence regardless of the source.
09 · Appeals
Appeals and complaints
Appealing a decision
Authors may appeal in writing, setting out the specific grounds. An appeal is considered by an editor who was not responsible for the original decision. A disagreement with reviewer opinion is not in itself a ground for appeal; a demonstrable error of fact or process is.
Complaints
Complaints about editorial process, conduct or delay go to the editorial office and are answered directly. A complaint about a decision is handled as an appeal.
Appeals and complaints: [email protected].
Withdrawal
For manuscript withdrawal requests, consult the journal’s withdrawal policy.
Copyright, licensing, and reuse
Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0), with copyright retained by the authors. Authors grant the publisher the rights needed to publish, distribute, and archive the work.
CC BY permits copying, distribution, adaptation, translation, and reuse, including commercial reuse, with appropriate attribution, a link to the license, and an indication of changes. Identify the authors, article title, journal, year, and DOI or source URL. Do not imply endorsement by the authors.
Authors may share the published version and deposit it in repositories. Third-party material excluded from the article’s license must carry a credit line identifying its separate terms; obtain permission when required. Patient privacy, consent, and other rights remain applicable to reuse.
Data and manuscript archiving
Include a data-availability statement describing the repository, accession number or persistent identifier, access conditions, and any justified restrictions. Deposit data and code in suitable repositories where permitted by consent, privacy, ethics, and applicable requirements. Use controlled access where necessary rather than exposing identifiable or confidential material.
Suitable disciplinary repositories include GEO or SRA for sequence and expression data, EGA for controlled-access human genomic data, and ProteomeXchange for proteomics. Provide documentation, data dictionaries, software versions, and license information. Prefer machine-readable data; clinical tabular data may use CSV/TSV, imaging DICOM/NIfTI, genomic data FASTQ/BAM/VCF, and pathology images TIFF/SVS as appropriate to the material.
Authors may deposit accepted manuscripts and published versions in funder-designated or institutional repositories, subject to the relevant version and funder requirements. Eligible NIH-funded manuscripts may use the NIH Manuscript Submission System for individual deposit in PubMed Central.
Where to go next
How the policies are applied
These policies are operational. The editor and reviewer pages set out how they are applied to a manuscript in practice.
Journal of Thyroid Cancer (JTC) · ISSN 2574-4496 · Crossref DOI prefix 10.14302 · published open access by Open Access Pub under CC BY 4.0, with copyright retained by authors. Editorial decisions are independent of any fee, service, membership or role.
Digital preservation
This journal’s content is committed to Portico, a not-for-profit digital-preservation archive run by ITHAKA (the organization behind JSTOR). As articles are deposited they enter Portico’s permanent archive, so the scholarly record stays available for the long term — even if a title one day ceases to publish. Read our preservation policy.