Manuscript Withdrawal Policy

The Journal of Information Technology, Cybersecurity, and Artificial Intelligence (JITCAI) recognizes that authors may occasionally need to withdraw a manuscript from consideration. This policy establishes a transparent and consistent process for manuscript withdrawal while protecting the integrity of the editorial and scholarly publishing process.

1. Withdrawal Before Acceptance

Authors may request withdrawal of their manuscript at any time while the manuscript is under initial editorial evaluation, peer review, or revision.

The withdrawal request must be submitted by the corresponding author through the journal's editorial system or by contacting the Editorial Office.

There is no fee for withdrawing a manuscript before acceptance.

Once the withdrawal request has been confirmed by the Editorial Office, the manuscript will no longer be considered for publication by JITCAI.

2. Withdrawal After Acceptance but Before APC Payment

Authors may request withdrawal after a manuscript has been accepted for publication, provided that the Article Processing Charge (APC) has not yet been paid and the article has not entered final publication.

JITCAI does not charge authors a withdrawal fee for manuscripts withdrawn during this stage.

The corresponding author should submit the withdrawal request promptly so that the editorial and production process can be stopped.

3. Withdrawal After APC Payment or During Final Production

Once the Article Processing Charge has been paid or the manuscript has entered final production, the manuscript is considered committed for publication.

Requests received at this stage will be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief on a case-by-case basis. Authors must provide a clear reason for requesting withdrawal.

Payment of the APC does not guarantee publication where serious ethical, legal, research-integrity, or publication-integrity concerns arise.

Any refund of an Article Processing Charge will be governed by the journal's current Article Processing Charge (APC) and Refund Policy.

4. Withdrawal After Publication

Once an article has been formally published and assigned a DOI, it cannot ordinarily be withdrawn as though it had never been published.

Requests involving serious errors, research misconduct, plagiarism, duplicate publication, authorship disputes, ethical violations, legal concerns, or other significant issues will instead be handled according to JITCAI's Correction, Retraction, and Publication Ethics policies.

When an article must be retracted or formally withdrawn after publication, JITCAI will preserve the integrity of the scholarly record. The original DOI will remain active and resolve to an accessible landing page that clearly identifies the article's current status.

The article will not simply be deleted in a manner that causes its DOI to resolve to an unavailable or 404 page.

Where appropriate, JITCAI will publish a withdrawal or retraction notice, link it to the affected article, and update the corresponding DOI metadata with Crossref to reflect the article's status.

5. How to Request Withdrawal

A withdrawal request should be submitted by the corresponding author and should include:

  • Manuscript title
  • Manuscript/submission ID
  • Name of the corresponding author
  • Reason for requesting withdrawal
  • Confirmation that the authors agree with the withdrawal request

JITCAI may contact the authors when additional information or confirmation is required before processing the request.

6. Duplicate Submission and Unethical Withdrawal

Authors should not submit the same manuscript simultaneously to JITCAI and another journal.

Submitting a manuscript to another journal while it remains under active consideration by JITCAI may constitute a violation of publication ethics.

Authors wishing to submit their manuscript elsewhere should first request and receive confirmation of withdrawal from JITCAI.

JITCAI reserves the right to investigate withdrawal requests involving suspected duplicate submission, plagiarism, manipulation of the peer-review process, authorship disputes, or other potential violations of publication ethics.

7. Editorial Withdrawal

JITCAI reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from consideration when significant concerns are identified, including but not limited to:

  • Plagiarism or duplicate publication
  • Fabricated or falsified information
  • Manipulation of the peer-review process
  • Serious authorship disputes
  • Ethical or legal concerns
  • Misrepresentation of research or author information
  • Failure to respond to required editorial or production communications
  • Other serious violations of JITCAI's publication policies

Such decisions will be made in accordance with the journal's publication ethics procedures.

8. Preservation of the Scholarly Record

JITCAI is committed to maintaining the accuracy, transparency, and persistence of the scholarly record.

A DOI assigned to a published scholarly work will not be replaced with a new DOI merely because the article is corrected, retracted, withdrawn, or its metadata is updated. DOI records and associated metadata will be maintained and updated as necessary to accurately reflect the status of the published work.

Policy Responsibility

This policy is administered by the Journal of Information Technology, Cybersecurity, and Artificial Intelligence (JITCAI) and JITCAI Publication LLC.

JITCAI may revise this policy as scholarly publishing standards, Crossref requirements, and publication ethics guidance evolve.