Template of IJO Original Article.doc        

GENERAL INFORMATION

International Journal of Ophthalmology-IJO is a global ophthalmological scientific publication and a peer-reviewed open access periodical (ISSN 2222-3959 print, ISSN 2227-4898 online). This journal is sponsored by Chinese Medical Association Xi’an Branch and published by the IJO Press. It has been indexed in SCIE, PubMed, PMC, CA, IC, Scopus, EMBASE and DOAJ.  IJO’s JCR IF in 2023 is 1.9, Five-year Impact Factor is 1.8, CiteScore in 2023 is 2.5. IJO was established in 2008, with editorial office in Xi’an, China. It is a monthly publication and accept contribations from all over the world, both basic and Chinical research.

Aim & Scope  IJO is a comprehensive journal on ophthalmology accepting contributions in English from all over the world. These contributions mainly include original and review articles, both basic and clinical scientific manuscript. With more than 1000 manuscripts received annually, IJO accepts about 26% submitted manuscripts. IJO applies itself to establish a leading ophthalmology journal in the world, to provide a platform for ophthalmologists and impulse the advanced development of ophthalmology.

Manuscript Types  Original Articles (Basic Research and Clinical Research), Review, Meta-Analysis, Commentary, Investigation, Perspective, Opinion, Brief Report, and Letter to the Editor, etc.

Note: Submissions must be an original contribution not previously published (except as an abstract), must not currently be under consideration for publication elsewhere in the similar form, in any language, including both paper and electronic formats.

EDITORIAL POLICIES

Peer Review  All manuscripts are subjected to double blind peer-review and editorial approval before accepting for publication. All contributions will be sent to at least three or more independent reviewers, selected by the editors. Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent reviewers and may also request that the journal excludes one or two individuals or laboratories, but the editor’s decision on the choice of referees is final. Editors, authors, and reviewers are required to keep confidential all details of the editorial and peer review process on submitted manuscripts, the peer review process is confidential and conducted anonymously; Outcomes of the review process include acceptance, acceptance with revisions but without re-review, revise and resubmit, or rejection. Results of the review process are normally available in about 2-4 months of submission.

Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent  For all manuscripts reporting data from studies involving human participants or animals, a formal review and approval, or formal review and waiver by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee is required, and should be described in the Ethical Approval part at the beginning of the Subjects and Methods section. For investigators who do not have a formal ethics review committee (institutional or regional), the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in 2013) must be followed. For investigations done in humans, the Methods section must state the manner in which informed consent was obtained from the subjects (i.e., oral, or written), and whether participants received a stipend. If experimental animals were used in the research, IJO requires that authors confirm adherence to the ARVO Statement for the Use of Animals in Ophthalmic and Vision Research in the Methods section of their manuscript.

Clinical Trial Registry  When publishing clinical studies, IJO aims to comply with the Recommendations of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) on trials registration ((http://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform/the-ictrp-search-portal). Therefore, authors are requested to register the clinical trial presented in the manuscript in a public trial registry, and include the trial registration number in the Methods Section.

Conflicts of Interest  A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author’s institution or employer) has financial, or personal relationships that could inappropriately influence (or bias) the author’s decisions, work, or manuscript. All authors are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest in the Acknowledgments section of the manuscript by following the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html

Authors without conflicts of interest, including relevant financial interests, activities, relationships, and affiliations, should indicate that no conflicts of interest exist in the Acknowledgments section of their manuscript.

e.g., Conflicts of Interest: Wang H, None; Barteselli G, None; Freeman WR, None; Lee SN, None; Chhablani J, None; El-Emam S, None; Cheng L, None.

Foundations  All financial support for the research and the work should be clearly and completely identified in an Acknowledgment section of the manuscript.

Plagiarism  IJO uses Crossref Similarity Check (powered by iThenticate) to screen submitted contents, and we will do some investigation if the software raises any concerns. If plagiarism is detected after manuscript is submitted, the manuscript will be rejected; If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may issue a correction or retraction notice for the related paper. We reserve the right to inform authors’ institutions about plagiarism detected either before or after publication. Articles containing plagiarism will be removed from publication and will be reported to the proper authorities.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION REQUIREMENTS

Manuscripts are received with the explicit understanding that they are not under simultaneous consideration by any other publication, except in abstract form. Submission of an article for publication implies the transfer of the copyright from the author to the publisher upon acceptance.

Language Polishing  If an author’s manuscript requires a language polishing service (excluding translation & rewrite), they can use the services from the Charlesworth group (http://www.charlesworthauthorservices.com/?rcode=IJO001), and may qualify for a discount.

Cover Letter Manuscripts must be accompanied by a cover letter. The authors must clearly explain the contribution of the work in terms of its theoretical and/or practical value, and association with previously published papers. The cover letter should also include a detailed contact address, and the email addresses for the first author, and the corresponding author.

The main manuscript document should be organized as follows:

Title Page  It is the first page of your manuscript, in which you must indicate the full manuscript title (≤12 notional words), the running title (≤6 notional words), the name(s) of the author(s), affiliation(s), institution(s) and/or department(s) where the work was accomplished, author contributions. In addition, the corresponding author’s name, full address with postal code, telephone and fax numbers, and email address must be included. Titles should be concise and informative (removing all unnecessary words), emphasize what is new, and avoid abbreviations. The name(s) of the author(s)’ name(s) must be listed in the following manner: initial and/or first name, middle name or initial(s), and full family name.

Abstract  An informative, structured abstract of no more than 400 words should accompany each manuscript. Abstracts for original contributions should be structured into the following sections:

AIM: Only the purpose should be included.

METHODS: The materials, techniques, instruments, equipments and study designs, outcome measurements, and the experimental procedures as well as statistical methods should be included.

RESULTS: The observed and experimental results, including data, effects, outcomes, etc. should be included. The results should be concise and statistical significance should be presented as appropriate.

CONCLUSION: Conclusion should be justified by the study findings and the value of the findings should be specific in relation to its application.

Review articles require non-structured abstract.

KEYWORDS: Please list 3 to 8 keywords, selected mainly from Index Medicus, which reflect the content of the study.

Text  For original articles on either clinical science or laboratory science, the main text should be structured into the following sections: INTRODUCTION, SUBJECTS AND METHODS, RESULTS, and DISCUSSION, and should include appropriate Figures and Tables. Data should be presented in the body text or in Figures and Tables, but not in both.

All submissions must be typed in Times New Roman with 10.5pt single-spaced front, and 2 cm margins all around. In a brief introduction, provide the research rationale, and objectives without extensively reviewing the literature. In the Methods section, describe the experimental design, subjects used, and procedures followed; provide sufficient details to enable others to duplicate the research. Use standard chemical or pharmaceutical terms. Make sure the metric unit and punctuation are used correctly. Please state clearly the statistics version and statistical method, and use the statistical symbols correctly. In parentheses, identify specific sources by the name of company, city, or state of country. Present the Results with a minimum of discussion. Cite all tables, and figures in numerical order. Limit the Discussion to statistically significant data, and their limitations. Do not reiterate results.

Acknowledgements  The Acknowledgements section is the general term that includes the list of contributions, disclosures, credits, and other information included at the end of the text of a manuscript but before the references. The Acknowledgements section includes authors’ contributions; information on author access to data; disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, including financial interests, activities, relationships, and affiliations; sources of funding and support; an explanation of the role of sponsor(s); information on independent statistical analysis (if required); names, degrees, and affiliations of participants in a large study or other group; any important disclaimers; information on previous presentation of the information reported in the manuscript; listing of supplemental material; and the contributions, names, degrees, affiliations, and indication if compensation has been received for all persons who have made substantial contributions to the work but who are not authors.

All other persons who have made substantial contributions to the work reported in this manuscript (e.g., data collection, analysis, and writing or editing assistance), but who do not fulfill the authorship criteria should be named with their specific contributions in an Acknowledgements in the manuscript.

Authors must obtain written permission to include the names of all individuals included in the Acknowledgements section, and the corresponding author must confirm such permission.

References  Authors should cite the literatures published in recent 5 years as many as possible, while over past 10 years as few as possible. The Price Index (number of literatures published in recent 5 years/total number of references×100) should be over 50%. List references numerically by order of citation in the text, not alphabetically. All references must be cited in the text or tables, shown as superscript numbers. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references. References should follow the standards summarized in the recommendations of ICMJE http://www.icmje.org/urm_main.html.

Journals

Authors’ surnames and initials. Article title. Abbreviated name of journal   Year;vol(issue No.):inclusive pages.

e.g., 1 Bringmann A, Jochmann C, Unterlauft JD, Wiedemann R, Rehak M, Wiedemann P. Different modes of foveal regeneration after closure of full-thickness macular holes by (re)vitrectomy and autologous platelet concentrate. Int J Ophthalmol 2020;13(1):36-48.

2 Kong CL, Thompson RR, Porco TC, Kim E, Acharya NR. Incidence Rate of Herpes Zoster Ophthalmicus: A Retrospective Cohort Study from 1994 through 2018. Ophthalmology 2020;127(3):324-330.

Books

1 An entire book: Authors’ surnames and initials. Book Title. Edition number (if it is the second edition or above). State (or Country) of publisher: Publisher’s name; copyright year.

e.g., Naumann GOH, Holbach L, Kruse FE. Applied Pathology for Ophthalmic Microsurgeons. Germany:Springer; 2008.

2 Chapter in a book: Authors’ surnames and initials. Chapter Title. Surname and initials of book authors or editors (or translator, if any). Book Title. Edition number (if it is the second edition or above). State (or Country) of publisher: Publisher’s name; copyright year. Page number.

e.g., Bye L, Modi N, Stanford M. Anatomy. Basic Sciences for Ophthalmology. UK: Oxford University Press; 2013:1-10.

Figure Legends and Figures  Figures should be embedded in the main text where the figures are applicable and also should be uploaded as separate files to the online submission system. Figures should be numbered as 1, 2, 3 and so on, and mentioned clearly in the main text. For photomicrographs, include the type of specimen, original magnification or a scale bar, and stain. For gross pathology specimens, label any rulers with unit of measure. Digitally enhanced images (CT/MRI, blots, photographs, photomicrographs, ultrasound images, X-ray films, etc.) must be clearly identified in the figure legends as digitally processed images.

Individual figure files - must be TIFF (.tif), or JPG (.jpg) files.

——Minimum resolution is 300 dpi for photographs and 1200 dpi for line art

——Color files are RGB or CMYK

——Multiple panels of figures are combined in a single figure file, i.e., there is only one Figure 1 file, not Figure 1A file, Figure 1B file etc.

——Figures are the approximate size and they will appear in the final published PDF, i.e., they are not thumbnails, which will lose resolution when enlarged

Tables  Tables should be in Word format and placed in the main text where the table is first cited, which should not use picture tools to create tables or upload tables in image format or in Excel files. Tables must be cited in the main text in numerical order. A table need to be simplified when it cannot fit onto one page. Tables should be self-explanatory and the data they contain must not be duplicated in the text or figures. Each table should have a brief title and all abbreviations within the table should be included in a footnote to the table. Each piece of data needs to be contained in its own cell and the boxhead should not be empty.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

All manuscripts must be submitted via our online manuscript submission and review system (https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/ijo).

Manuscript Components  Include in the manuscript file a title page, abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, and figure legends. Beginning with the title page, start each of these sections on a new page, and number them consecutively.

Recommended File Sizes  We recommend individual file sizes of no more than 500 kB, and not exceeding 1 MB, with the total size for all files not exceeding 10 MB.

Manuscript File Formats  For submission and review, the acceptable manuscript file format is Microsoft Word. Do not submit your manuscript in PDF format.

Open Access Statement 

All content of the IJO is published with open access under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). All articles published with open access will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read, download, copy, and distribute as defined by the applied license.

Free access and usage
Permitted third party reuse is defined by the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This license allows users to copy and distribute the article under the following conditions:

• this is not done for commercial purposes and does not permit the further distribution of the article if it is changed or edited in any way.
• the user gives appropriate credit (with a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI) and provides a link to the license, but does not in an any way imply that the licensor is endorsing the user or the use of the work.
• no derivatives including the remixing, transforming, or building upon of the material is allowed for distribution.

 The full details of the license are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Copyright
For open access publishing, IJO uses an licensing agreement. Authors will transfer copyright to IJO Press but will have the right to share their article in the same way permitted to third parties under the relevant user license, along with certain scholarly usage rights.

Publication Policy

Article processing charges  According to the IJO PRESS publication Policy, only the Publication Fees are billed per article upon acceptance in order to offset processing charges of articles (Minimum $500, maximum $1800. per article); the paper reaching the world advanced level will acquire the priority with free publication on IJO.

Contact us

International Journal of Ophthalmology Press (IJO Press)

Room 11707-08, Unit 1, Building 2, Wanda Plaza, No.8 Yanta North Road, Xi’an 710054, Shaanxi Province, P.R. China

Tel: ( 8629)82210956

Fax: ( 8629)82245172

Email: ijopress@163.com

Website: www.ijo.cn