By submitting a manuscript to the Journal of Ophthalmic and Optometric Sciences (JOOS), authors are expected to adhere to the following publication ethics and guidelines:
Manuscript Originality: The manuscript should be an original work that has not been published previously and is not under consideration elsewhere.
Publication Ethics: Authors should follow the standards of publication ethics as outlined by the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE). Plagiarism, falsification, fabrication of data, and duplicate publication without proper citation are considered unacceptable practices.
Ethical Approval: For studies involving human participants or animals, authors must provide approval from the appropriate ethics committee or review board at the regional, national, institutional, or independent level.
Clinical Trials: All clinical trials submitted to JOOS should be registered in a public trials registry before or at the time of the first patient enrollment. Registration in a public trials registry is a condition for consideration of publication.
Human and Animal Rights: For studies involving human subjects, authors should ensure that the research has been conducted in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans and the Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals. The manuscript should include a statement indicating that informed consent was obtained from human subjects for their participation in the study. Informed consent from adult research participants and parental assent for children is mandatory. For studies involving animals, authors should indicate which institutional, national, or international guide on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
Protection of Participant Anonymity: Authors are responsible for protecting the anonymity of research participants. Participants' names, initials, or hospital numbers should not be mentioned, especially in illustrative material. If photographs or videos are used, written and signed permission from the patient must be obtained if the patient could be recognizable.
Authorship Criteria: Each person listed as an author should have made a significant contribution to the study. The journal follows the Authorship Criteria set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Authors should refer to the ICMJE criteria (available at http://www.icmje.org/index.html) to determine whether contributors should be listed as authors or acknowledged.
Copyright Permissions: Authors must obtain written permission from the copyright owner (usually the publisher) to use direct quotations, tables, or illustrations that have appeared in copyrighted form elsewhere. Complete details about the source should be provided. Any permission fees required by the copyright owner are the responsibility of the authors.
Adhering to these ethical guidelines ensures the integrity, transparency, and responsible conduct of research and publication in JOOS.