About the Journal

Clinical Optometry and Vision Sciences Journal (COVS), with ISSN 2951-9349, is published by the Aragonese Society of Optometry and Contactology (SAOCO) on a semiannual basis and is freely accessible to both authors and readers. The University of Zaragoza (Spain) is a collaborator in information and dissemination tasks.

It is aimed at all professionals related to visual health and vision sciences: optometrists, physicists, doctors, ophthalmologists, nurses, psychologists, psychopedagogues, etc.

Some topics of interest for this Journal include, among others: ophthalmic optics, physical optics, physiological optics, clinical instrumentation, optometry, contactology, vision therapy, low vision, ocular pathology, ocular health, anterior segment, ocular adnexa, posterior segment, ocular pharmacology, and public health.

All articles in this Journal undergo a peer review by the Editorial Committee and external Reviewers. Articles are submitted by authors, who are responsible for the accuracy of the research reported.

All published articles will comply with the Creative Commons Non-Commercial 4.0 license.

All opticians-optometrists residing in Spain must be registered with their corresponding College in order to publish in this journal.

You can consult the Copyright Policy and the Personal Data Protection Policy in the Privacy Statement section.

For more information about the Society and/or the Journal, you can do so in the Contact section.

 

INDEXING

The COVS Journal is indexed in:

 

EDITORIAL POLICY

Any professional related to the field of visual health can submit research articles to this Journal for peer review.

The topics covered in the articles should be related to visual health (optometry, ophthalmic lenses, contactology, vision therapy, low vision, ocular pathology, ophthalmology, anterior segment, posterior segment, ocular pharmacology, etc.), and the language of the article must be Spanish (Spain) or British English.

The Journal's management and its editorial team reserve the right to publish or not publish the articles submitted by authors, based on their editorial policy and scientific criteria.

The COVS Journal follows the best practices principles established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/).

By submitting their articles to the COVS Journal, authors must comply with the publication standards set forth in the author guidelines.

 

ANTI-PLAGIARISM POLICY

The COVS Journal has a strict anti-plagiarism policy, using tools such as Turnitin, Plagiarism, etc. This ensures that the articles/manuscripts submitted to its Editorial Board are original and not published elsewhere.

If plagiarism is detected in any submitted articles, the work will be immediately rejected, and the author(s) will be informed of the Editorial Board's decision.

Plagiarism is considered to be the total or partial reproduction of another's work, presenting it as original and one's own. Plagiarism also includes the appropriation of others' ideas, reformulating or summarizing them and presenting them as one's own.

This applies to both texts and images, graphics, data, tables, and/or illustrations reproduced in the work without having copyright rights.

If the work is the author's own but already published elsewhere, it will be considered self-plagiarism and will be rejected as well.

Authors of articles published in the COVS Journal retain copyright and grant copy and distribution rights to the Aragonese Society of Optometry and Contactology (SAOCO), with CIF: G99557373, and registered office at Calle Cadena, 15 – Bajo. CP: 50001, Zaragoza (Spain).

 

NO APC POLICY

The COVS Journal offers immediate open access to all its content. Any interested reader can access this website and download all articles and issues published.

Neither SAOCO nor the COVS Journal will charge Article Processing Charges (APC), meaning no author will bear the costs of editing, production, or publication.

 

MANUSCRIPT REVIEW PROCESS

1. Review by the Technical Secretariat

   Upon receiving the manuscript, the Technical Secretariat members will conduct an initial review regarding format and publication standards. The Technical Secretariat will remove author information from the manuscript to ensure anonymity throughout the process.

   If the manuscript is incorrect or requires any changes, the author who submitted it will be contacted for correction.

2. Anti-plagiarism Review

   All manuscripts will be subjected to a strict anti-plagiarism policy, as described in the previous section of this page.

3. Peer Review

   Manuscripts that pass the previous filters will be evaluated by at least two visual health professionals in a "double-blind" process, meaning the reviewers will not know the authors' names or affiliations.

   Reviewers will send their evaluations and comments to the Journal's Editorial Board, who will decide whether to publish the manuscript, reject it, or return it to the authors for appropriate corrections.

   This decision will be based on the reviewers' comments, who must include whether they recommend publication, rejection, or modifications and a new evaluation.

   The final decision will be communicated to the authors via email.

   Approved manuscripts will be published in the next available issue of the Journal.

   If reviewers believe the manuscript requires modifications from the authors, the authors must provide thorough and well-considered responses to all reviewers' comments in a separate document. The author's response to the reviews must address all points raised by the reviewers clearly and explicitly.

   If the authors choose not to accept a reviewer's recommendation, they must justify this decision with convincing arguments that include adequate evidence (e.g., data, references, etc.) for any recommended changes not made.

   Manuscript revisions must be clearly annotated in the response to the reviews, indicating the page and line number of any changes made.

   When reviewers identify questions, concerns, or opportunities to improve a manuscript, it is not enough for the authors to provide clarifications only in the response to the reviews; the authors must also make modifications and improvements to the manuscript text to ensure the final article is clear and compelling for the Journal's readers.

 

LEGAL NOTICE AND PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION POLICY

You can consult our Legal Notice and Personal Data Protection Policy in the Privacy Statement section.