Authorship Criteria

Eye Science adheres to the authorship criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Each author must meet the criteria for authorship, which the ICMJE recommends as the following 4 criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;

2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

3. Final approval of the version to be published;

4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, ensuring that any issues related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is responsible for a submission and all communication with the journal. The corresponding author must notify the editors and editorial office, via the submission form, of the following:

· Identify any guest authors, i.e., individuals who do not meet authorship criteria but have made a substantial contribution to the research or writing of the manuscript.

· Confirm that there are no “ghost authors”, i.e., individuals who have made a substantial contribution but do not qualify as an author and have not been disclosed to the editor.

· Submission of ICMJE conflict of interest disclosure form and Copyright Transfer Agreement for all authors; conflict of interest disclosures must also be reported on the manuscript's title page.

Research Group/Writing Committee Authorship

If the research group or writing committee is credited as the author and the chair of the group serves as the corresponding author, this should be indicated on the title page. However, if the corresponding author is not the group chair, a statement from the chair must be submitted, confirming that the group or committee members listed as authors on the title page are correct. The journal encourages transparency regarding authorship to editors, reviewers, and readers.

For initial group papers and subsequent articles, members can be acknowledged either directly in print, by reference to a previous paper, or in online supplemental material. Members should be listed in the byline as follows: "...for the XYZ Research Group" or "...on behalf of the XYZ Group." If group members are listed as authors, they must meet authorship criteria and submit the required forms. If the list of group members is provided only in an online file, those individuals will not be indexed as co-authors.

To ensure transparency, the journal follows these policies regarding research group or writing committee authorship:

· if an individual is authoring on behalf of a group (e.g., a group chair), the byline should appear as follows:

Mei LI, MD for the XYZ Research Group

· For small research groups (10 or fewer members), authorship may be attributed to the group itself or include the names of the writing committee members followed by “and the XYZ Research Group,” provided all members meet authorship criteria. Otherwise, only those who qualify as authors should be listed, with the remaining members acknowledged separately. Example:

Xin AN MD.; Hongmei ZHAO PhD; Hongfei HUANG PhD; and the XYZ Research Group

· For large research groups (more than 10 members), authorship should not be attributed to the group as a whole. Given the size of such groups, it is unlikely that every member has contributed sufficiently to meet the authorship criteria outlined above. Instead, large research groups should follow one of the following formats:

· List the writing committee members as authors, followed by "for the XYZ Research Group."

· Alternatively, use "Writing Committee for the XYZ Research Group*" as the author, with the names of the writing committee members provided at the end of the article, marked with an asterisk.

In either case, all writing committee members must meet authorship criteria and submit the required forms. Example:

Xin AN MD.; Hongmei ZHAO PhD; Hongfei HUANG PhD for the XYZ Research Group

OR

The Writing Committee for Xin AN MD.; Hongmei ZHAO PhD; Hongfei HUANG PhD; and the XYZ Research Group*

OR

The ABC Collaborative Research Group Writing Committee*

To ensure the contributions of the writing committee or research group members are searchable, the submission must include a Word file listing each writing committee or research group member. This file should be uploaded as a “Collaborators” document type. When listed as collaborators, an expandable listing under "Collaborators" should be provided as part of the article record. Expandable authorship is suitable in the following cases: (1) When the byline includes only a group name. (2) When the byline includes a group name along with individual authors who are not members of the collaborative group (e.g., individual author names followed by ", and the XYZ Group," where participating group members are not included in the byline).

For any deviation from these authorship guidelines, authors must contact the editorial office at es@gzzoc.com prior to submission. The Executive Editor-in-Chief and/or Editor-in-Chief will evaluate each case individually in consultation with the corresponding author.