Withdrawal of Manuscript

The International Informatics Express Journal (IIEJ) recognizes that, under certain exceptional circumstances, authors may need to withdraw a manuscript after it has been submitted. However, because the peer-review and editorial processes require significant time, effort, and resources from our editors and independent expert reviewers, withdrawing a manuscript without a compelling academic reason is strongly discouraged.

To maintain the integrity of our publishing process, IIEJ has established the following policies regarding manuscript withdrawal:

1. Withdrawal Before Peer Review

Authors may withdraw their manuscript without any penalty if the request is made before the manuscript has been sent out for peer review. To initiate this, the corresponding author must promptly send a formal request to the editorial office.

2. Withdrawal During or After Peer Review

Once a manuscript is under active peer review, or after it has been formally accepted for publication, withdrawal is considered highly detrimental to the editorial workflow.

• Valid Reasons: If authors discover significant scientific errors, flawed data, or ethical issues in their work during the review process, they must immediately contact the editor. In such legitimate academic cases, withdrawal will be permitted.
• Invalid Reasons: Withdrawing a manuscript simply because the authors have changed their minds, or because the manuscript has been submitted to or accepted by another journal, is a severe breach of publication ethics (Concurrent Submission).

3. The Withdrawal Process

To withdraw a manuscript at any stage, the corresponding author must submit a formal "Letter of Withdrawal" to the Chief Editor via email. This formal request must:

• State the Manuscript ID and full Title.
• Clearly explain the valid, comprehensive reasons for the withdrawal request.
• Be explicitly agreed upon and signed (or cc'd) by all co-authors to ensure there are no internal authorship disputes.

Note: A manuscript is not officially considered withdrawn until the corresponding author receives a formal confirmation email from the IIEJ editorial office. Until then, the manuscript remains an active submission.

4. Unethical Withdrawal and Penalties

If an author requests a withdrawal without a compelling academic reason after the peer-review process has commenced, or after the paper has been accepted for publication, IIEJ considers this an unethical practice. In such instances, the journal reserves the right to take the following actions:

• Bar the corresponding author and co-authors from submitting future manuscripts to IIEJ for a specified period (e.g., 1 to 2 years).
• Implement a withdrawal penalty or administrative fee to compensate for the editorial and reviewer resources consumed.
• If the unethical withdrawal involves simultaneous submission to multiple journals, the editors may notify the editors of the other journal regarding the misconduct.

By submitting an article to IIEJ, authors acknowledge and agree to abide by this withdrawal policy.