Ethics in publishing

Please see our information pages on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication.

Studies in humans and animals

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

Declaration of interest

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors must disclose any interests in two places: 1. A summary declaration of interest statement in the title page file (if double-blind) or the manuscript file (if single-blind). If there are no interests to declare then please state this: ‘Declarations of interest: none’. This summary statement will be ultimately published if the article is accepted. 2. Detailed disclosures as part of a separate Declaration of Interest form, which forms part of the journal’s official records. It is important for potential interests to be declared in both places and that the information matches. More information.

Submission declaration and verification

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract, a published lecture or academic thesis, see ‘Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication‘ for more information), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service Crossref Similarity Check.

Use of inclusive language

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Articles should make no assumptions about the beliefs or commitments of any reader, should contain nothing which might imply that one individual is superior to another on the grounds of race, sex, culture or any other characteristic, and should use inclusive language throughout. Authors should ensure that writing is free from bias, for instance by using ‘he or she’, ‘his/her’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘his’, and by making use of job titles that are free of stereotyping (e.g. ‘chairperson’ instead of ‘chairman’ and ‘flight attendant’ instead of ‘stewardess’).

Contributors

Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described. The statement that all authors have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.

Authorship

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.

Changes to authorship

Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript has been accepted and only if approved by the journal Editor. To request such a change, the Editor must receive the following from the corresponding author: (a) the reason for the change in author list and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only in exceptional circumstances will the Editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors after the manuscript has been accepted. While the Editor considers the request, publication of the manuscript will be suspended. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any requests approved by the Editor will result in a corrigendum.

Clinical trial results

In line with the position of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the journal will not consider results posted in the same clinical trials registry in which primary registration resides to be prior publication if the results posted are presented in the form of a brief structured (less than 500 words) abstract or table. However, divulging results in other circumstances (e.g., investors’ meetings) is discouraged and may jeopardise consideration of the manuscript. Authors should fully disclose all posting in registries of results of the same or closely related work.

Reporting clinical trials

Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines. At manuscript submission, authors must provide the CONSORT checklist accompanied by a flow diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. The CONSORT checklist and template flow diagram are available online.

Registration of clinical trials

Registration in a public trials registry is a condition for publication of clinical trials in this journal in accordance with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations. Trials must register at or before the onset of patient enrolment. The clinical trial registration number should be included at the end of the abstract of the article. A clinical trial is defined as any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects of health outcomes. Health-related interventions include any intervention used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome (for example drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, dietary interventions, and process-of-care changes). Health outcomes include any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. Purely observational studies (those in which the assignment of the medical intervention is not at the discretion of the investigator) will not require registration.

Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a ‘Journal Publishing Agreement’ (see more information on this). An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a ‘Journal Publishing Agreement’ form or a link to the online version of this agreement.

Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases.

For gold open access articles: Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete an ‘Exclusive License Agreement’ (more information). Permitted third party reuse of gold open access articles is determined by the author’s choice of user license.

Author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. More information.

Elsevier supports responsible sharing

Find out how you can share your research published in Elsevier journals.

Role of the funding source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

Funding body agreements and policies

Elsevier has established a number of agreements with funding bodies which allow authors to comply with their funder’s open access policies. Some funding bodies will reimburse the author for the gold open access publication fee. Details of existing agreements are available online.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)

For non-commercial purposes, lets others distribute and copy the article, and to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), as long as they credit the author(s) and provided they do not alter or modify the article.

The gold open access publication fee for this journal is $ 3000, excluding taxes. There is a discount off the open access publication fee for members of the Society. The Society member price is $2250, excluding taxes.

Green open access

Authors can share their research in a variety of different ways and Elsevier has a number of green open access options available. We recommend authors see our green open access page for further information. Authors can also self-archive their manuscripts immediately and enable public access from their institution’s repository after an embargo period. This is the version that has been accepted for publication and which typically includes author-incorporated changes suggested during submission, peer review and in editor-author communications. Embargo period: For subscription articles, an appropriate amount of time is needed for journals to deliver value to subscribing customers before an article becomes freely available to the public. This is the embargo period and it begins from the date the article is formally published online in its final and fully citable form. Find out more.

Elsevier Researcher Academy

Researcher Academy is a free e-learning platform designed to support early and mid-career researchers throughout their research journey. The “Learn” environment at Researcher Academy offers several interactive modules, webinars, downloadable guides and resources to guide you through the process of writing for research and going through peer review. Feel free to use these free resources to improve your submission and navigate the publication process with ease.

Language (usage and editing services)

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Authors who feel their English language manuscript may require editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English may wish to use the English Language Editing service available from Elsevier’s WebShop.

Informed consent and patient details

Studies on patients or volunteers require ethics committee approval and informed consent, which should be documented in the paper. Appropriate consents, permissions and releases must be obtained where an author wishes to include case details or other personal information or images of patients and any other individuals in an Elsevier publication. Written consents must be retained by the author but copies should not be provided to the journal. Only if specifically requested by the journal in exceptional circumstances (for example if a legal issue arises) the author must provide copies of the consents or evidence that such consents have been obtained. For more information, please review the Elsevier Policy on the Use of Images or Personal Information of Patients or other Individuals. Unless you have written permission from the patient (or, where applicable, the next of kin), the personal details of any patient included in any part of the article and in any supplementary materials (including all illustrations and videos) must be removed before submission.

Submission

Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. The system converts your article files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. Editable files (e.g., Word, LaTeX) are required to typeset your article for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor’s decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

Referees

Please submit the names and institutional e-mail addresses of several potential referees. For more details, visit our Support site. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used.

INTRODUCTION

The Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology (CJO) is the official journal of the Canadian Ophthalmological Society and is committed to timely publication of original, peer-reviewed ophthalmology and vision science articles.

Types of articles:

1. Review Article
Narrative literature reviews are generally by invitation only. Authors may request consideration from the Editor-in- Chief by providing a detailed outline of a proposed review article.

• Unstructured abstract
• Abstract maximum 250 words
• Manuscript maximum 3000 words
• Maximum 100 references
• Maximum 10 tables and (or) figures

2. Full Length Article
Includes: systematic review, meta-analysis, brief research report.

• Structured abstract (objective, design, participants, methods, results, conclusions)
• Abstract maximum 250 words
• Manuscript maximum 2500 words
• Maximum 50 references
• Maximum 10 tables and (or) figures

3. Case Report (published online only)
Includes: case report (1 or 2 cases)

• No abstract
• Maximum 1000 words
• Maximum 15 references
• Maximum 5 tables and (or) figures
• Maximum 5 authors

4. Editorial
Editorials are by invitation only.

• Maximum 1,000 words
• No maximum number of references

5. Correspondence (published online only)
Includes: brief communication, commentary

• No abstract
• Maximum 1000 words
• Maximum 15 references
• Maximum 5 tables and (or) figures
• Maximum 5 authors

6. Letter to the Editor
Letters concerning matters arising in recent CJO articles should be submitted within 4 months of the article’s publication. The authors of the original article will be invited to respond to the letter..

• Maximum 350 words
• Maximum 5 references (including the article being addressed)
• Maximum 3 authors

Contact details for submission

Please submit your article via https://www.evise.com/profile/api/navigate/CJO.
For questions regarding submissions please contact the CJO Editorial Office at [email protected].

Submission Checklist

You can use this list to carry out a final check of your submission before you send it to the journal for review. Please check the relevant section in this Guide for Authors for more details.

Ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address

All necessary files have been uploaded:
Manuscript:
• Include keywords
• All figures (include relevant captions)
• All tables (including titles, description, footnotes)
• Ensure all figure and table citations in the text match the files provided
• Indicate clearly if color should be used for any figures in print
Graphical Abstracts / Highlights files (where applicable)
Supplemental files (where applicable)

Further considerations:
• Manuscript has been ‘spell checked’ and ‘grammar checked’
• All references mentioned in the Reference List are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Internet)
• A competing interests statement is provided, even if the authors have no competing interests to declare
• Journal policies detailed in this guide have been reviewed
• Referee suggestions and contact details provided, based on journal requirements

For further information, visit our Support Center.

The Iowa Glaucoma Curriculum was created by Wallace L. M. Alward, MD, supported by the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.

The curriculum is intended to serve as an introduction to glaucoma for residents and perhaps as a review for practitioners. It began in the early 1990s to address areas such as aqueous humor dynamics or cholinergic agonists.

The site is organized by a checklist that includes tasks (like sitting in on a visual field and having one performed on themselves) and 50 didactic topics that cover all of glaucoma in digestible image and video collections.

The curriculum neatly breaks glaucoma into fifty bite-sized lectures that average 14 minutes in length (ranging from 4 to 37 minutes). It is highly visual with over 900 images (mostly clinical photographs and visual fields) and upwards of 90 brief movie clips. In total, the curriculum is just under 12 hours long.

The Glaucoma Curriculum also gives physicians and residents the option to search syndromes that have been associated with primary congenital glaucoma easily through PubMed. Alternatively, viewers can consult comprehensive glaucoma textbooks to determine whether the association has been described before.

Clinical Photograph Submissions

If you have a better example of any figure or are a skilled artist, Dr. Wallace L. M. Alward welcomes submissions. Please note that submitted materials cannot have been previously published and copyrighted. Submissions can be made to: The Iowa Glaucoma Curriculum.

Cybersight is a global community of learning, sharing and practice, providing online training and mentorship service for eye health professionals in developing countries.

Cybersight is a boundary-pushing, not-for-profit telemedicine initiative founded by Orbis International to help mitigate the shortage of skilled eye health professionals in developing countries, and help those in remote areas combat geographic isolation.

The primary goal of the training is to increase the capacity of eye health professionals and health systems to treat and prevent blindness and visual impairment.

Cybersight offers free online courses in ophthalmology, developed and delivered by international ophthalmology experts, on topics that include: cataract surgery, cornea, glaucoma, ophthalmic nursing, pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus.

Current Course Catalog:

• Basic Pediatric Anesthesia
• Fundamentals of Manual Small Incision Cataract Surgery (MSICS)
• Fundamentals of Pediatric Ophthalmology & Strabismus
• Ophthalmic Nursing Fundamentals
• Introduction to Pediatric Glaucoma
• Introduction to Pediatric Eye Care and Disease
• Introduction to Retinoblastoma
• Genetics in an Hour
• Fundamentals of Motility
• Fundamentals of the Optic Disc
• Cornea and External Disease – Herpes Infections
• Immune-Mediated Diseases of the Episclera and Sclera

Orbis also offers a library with lectures, surgical videos, quizzes, and textbooks and manuals for ophthalmologists across specialties. Access the online library here.

CPD Credits

Scanning resources that are relevant to your professional practice by enhancing your awareness of new evidence, perspectives and findings can be claimed as Section 2: Self-Learning under Scanning in MAINPORT with the MOC Program of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Access Details

All courses are optimized for mobile devices. To access free courses, join the community of learners here.

This resource is only available in English.

The Premium Cataract Surgery Knowledge Challenge is an interactive game that challenges ophthalmic surgeons to an educational mission. The game is focused on the modern premium cataract surgery suite, new innovative technologies and the skills necessary to take practices to the next level.

Target Audience

The game is targeted at ophthalmologists who specialize in cataract and refractive surgery.

Players can proceed through the modules to test their knowledge on premium cataract procedures and earn badges and trophies as they progress and play through the game. The game tracks the progress through each module.

Once the player is finished a module, the next module will be unlocked. The 5 modules contain expert insight from leading ophthalmologists in the following areas:

•   Module 1: Biometry (Created by Douglas D. Koch, MD)
•   Module 2: Aberration/Astigmatism Management Created by Karolinne Maia Rocha, MD)
•   Module 3: Patient Counseling (Created by Tal Raviv, MD) 
•   Module 4: Preoperative Ocular Surface Preparation (Created by Elizabeth Yeu, MD)
•   Module 5: Postoperative Management (Created by Cynthia Matossian, MD)

Access Details

Access The Premium Cataract Surgery Knowledge Challenge, supported by Johnson & Johnson Vision.

Competitive? Compete with your colleagues to earn a top spot on the leaderboard!

Accreditation

The Wills Eye Hospital is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians. 

The Wills Eye Hospital designates live educational activities for AMA PRA Category Credits.  Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in each activity.

To register for courses or lectures today, please visit The Wills Eye Hospital Knowledge Portal.

This resource is only available in English.

The Cataract Surgery: Telling It Like It Is Annual Meeting provides cutting-edge education unrestricted by the current CME guidelines. It will take place from February 6-10, 2019 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida and expects to attract more than 600 attendees, 100 exhibitors and 60 meeting and wet lab sponsors.

Target Audience

The program is relevant and aimed at providing basic to advanced instruction for both experienced ophthalmologists as well as residents in training. This meeting has been designed for ophthalmologists and residents/students.

Learning Objectives

After the meeting, participants will be able to:

• Convey updates on oculoplastics, neuro-ophthalmology, ocular oncology, retina, refractive, glaucoma and uveitis.
• Classify new technologies and techniques in cataract surgery, such as intrascleral haptic fixation, prosthetic iris implantation, variations of optic capture and pars plana vitrectomy for the cataract surgeon.
• Demonstrate various complication management techniques.

Access Details

For more information, please visit the Cataract Surgery Meeting website or register here and see a detailed program schedule.

This month, I want to highlight a site that offers curated content in the eye care area, which I find useful within my practice as an ophthalmologist. PracticeUpdate is an Elsevier product which provides journal scans across both the ophthalmology and the optometry literature.

In addition, it provides commentary from key opinion leaders. While not all the content is relevant to all ophthalmologists, I find it gives me a good overview of what is current and allows me to select areas of interest to pursue further learning.

PracticeUpdate is commercially supported by online advertising, sponsorship, and educational grants, however claims that it ‘maintains the highest level of academic rigor, objectivity, and fair balance associated with all Elsevier products. No editorial content on the site is influenced in any way by commercial sponsors or content contributors.’

Another feature that may be useful is that you can also signup for journal scans in other areas such as neurology or diabetes care that may be of interest. By registering, you can customize options for what information you wish to have pushed out to you, how often, and in what areas.

The site is responsive for access from a variety of devices. Check it out at www.practiceupdate.com.

Recommended by Dr. Colin Mann 
Chair, Practice Resource Centre

The Canada Retina Society (CRS) publishes an interesting and educational Vitreo-Retinal related image every three months – a ‘Snapshot of the Month.’ This quarter’s snapshot was written by Fannie Nadeau and Ananda Kalevar, MD (Department of Ophthalmology, HD Hospital, Sherbrooke University, Quebec). 

Snapshots entitled “Luck of the Draw” tell the story of an 80-year-old female experimented nasal visual field loss in her right eye (OD) with preserved temporal visual field. The patient had a cilioretinal artery; an anatomic variant found in 15 to 30% of the population that often supplies the papillomacular bundle, but that supplies the foveola in only 10% of eyes. 

To see this quarter’s images and read more, please take a look on the Canadian Retina Society website.

If you are interested in submitting a “Snapshot of the Month” for consideration, please see the SOTM Submission process requirements and guidelines.