Open access ophthalmology, optometry, and vision journals.

 

Scientists want their findings to be widely known through publication.  The conventional wisdom in academia is that one wants to publish in the journal with the highest impact factor, which is based on the number of citations the average article in the journal receives.  Traditionally, the journals with the highest impact factor were likely to have the highest distribution and the widest availability.  Today, the internet has turned this situation on its head, because anyone can publish anything to a worldwide audience instantaneously.  The open access internet is the platform with the widest availability.  As of this writing, in March 2011, there are estimated to be 6.9 billion people on our planet, and 2.0 billion are estimated to have internet access.  This number is exploding with the introduction of smartphones.  No academic journal has a distribution close to this.  But in order to help people find your work amid all the clutter of the internet, it helps to have it in an academic journal pointed to by Medline, and it still doesn't hurt if the journal has a high impact factor.  The ideal journal would be Medline-indexed, archived in PubmedCentral, with no author processing fees, available immediately, in full-text html (as opposed to just pdf format), with a high impact factor.  Here are some open-access journals of interest in ophthalmology, optometry, and vision science.  The table lists English-language journals free for the author, followed by those for which the author pays, and then journals not permitting English articles.  Within each section, the highest-impact journals are listed first, followed by Pubmedcentral journals, followed by Medline-indexed journals, and then non-Medline-indexed journals.

 

 

Some journals, such as BMC Ophthalmology, permit institutional memberships.  So if your university has a membership, submission would be discounted.

 

If your vision-related paper overlaps with another field, you may also consider publishing in that field, as well (e.g. a paper on diabetic retinopathy might be publishable in a diabetes journal or a public health journal).  You can find these journals by looking at the website "Directory of Open Access Journals,"  pubmedcentral, or, if you've really got time on your hands, searching through all the journal titles in pubmed.org.  Good luck!

 

May 6, 2011.  The Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology used to be open access pdf, with free author submission.  However, it now looks like they are going to non-open access for full-text downloads outside of Canada in Sep 2011.  So I have removed them from the above list.  If you have any information on this, put it in the comment box below.

 

July 3, 2011.  ISRN Ophthalmololgy (see link in table above) is newly launching from Hindawi publishing.  As a new journal, they are not charging author submission fees.  I assume this will eventually change.

 

July 11, 2011.  I added the Journal of Ophthalmic Inflammation and Infection, which has been publishing since 2010.

 

July 20, 2011.  Journal of Ophthalmology running special issue on "Challenging cataracts, including pediatric cataracts" with deadline for article submission of Aug 15, 2011.

 

September, 19, 2011.  The Open Journal of Ophthalmology is looking for Editorial Board members to serve initial one-year terms (three-years for editor-in-chief). Send your questions or application (including your research areas and resume) to ojoph@scirp.org.

 

October 20, 2011.  GMS Ophthalmology Cases is a new journal.  See the table above.

 

October 31, 2011.  Case Reports in Ophthalmological Medicine is a new journal.  See the table above.

 

November 21, 2011.  The special issue "Chronic Migraine," will be published in Headache Research and Treatment in July 2012. Deadline for submission: January 13th, 2012.

December 5, 2011.  The Journal of Ophthalmology is doing a special issue on eye trauma. (Disclosure: I am the lead Guest Editor.)  The deadline for submission is March 16, 2012, with papers to be published in August of 2012.  We are looking for papers addressing advances as well as clinical controversies.  In addition to the topics listed in the call for papers (nonaccidental trauma in children (How do we really know if these hemorrhages are nonaccidental?), hyphema in sickle cell (Are the current guidelines based on solid evidence?), OCT in trauma, intravitreal antibiotics with posterior segment foreign bodies, when to give up on NLP eyes, what steps are truly needed and proven to reduce the risk of sympathetic ophthalmia, etc.) we are also interested in orbital fractures (Will strabismus usually get better without orbital surgery, or should fractures be repaired promptly?), chemical eye injury, traumatic optic neuropathy, and other eye trauma subjects.

December 16, 2011.  W. Daniel Stamer will be taking on the role of J Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics in Jan 2012.

 

[The above table may have mistakes. If you spot any mistakes, put a comment below.  Christopher Leffler.]