Macula: The Journal of Macular Diseases follows the core practice guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the membership criteria of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Where those bodies update their guidance, this page is revised to match.
Editorial decisions are based solely on a manuscript's scientific merit, originality, and relevance to the Journal's scope. They are never influenced by the author's nationality, institution, religion, political belief, gender, or by commercial considerations. The Journal has no owner or sponsor with the authority to override an editorial decision.
Editors and reviewers must recuse themselves from handling a manuscript when they have a competing interest with the authors — a recent co-authorship, a shared grant, a personal or financial relationship, or direct professional competition. Recusals are logged by the editorial office and reassigned to an unconflicted editor.
To limit the appearance and reality of favoritism, no more than 25% of the articles published by the Journal in any calendar year may list a current editor, editorial board member, or that year's reviewer as an author — consistent with DOAJ's endogeny criteria. Manuscripts authored by an editor are handled from submission to decision by a different, unconflicted editor, with the author excluded from any part of the review process.
Every submission is screened for text-overlap (plagiarism) and, where applicable, for image manipulation before it enters review. The Journal's AI-assisted review step (see the AI-Assisted Peer Review Policy) additionally flags internal inconsistencies and closely related prior publications for the editor's attention — these are leads for human judgment, not automatic findings of misconduct.
Concerns raised about a submitted or published article — data fabrication, undisclosed duplicate publication, authorship disputes, undisclosed conflicts, or plagiarism — are investigated by the editorial office following COPE's flowcharts. The author is given the opportunity to respond before any decision is made. Outcomes may include a request for correction, an editorial expression of concern, or retraction, communicated to the author's institution where warranted.
All human-subjects research must have documented ethics committee approval and informed consent, and all animal research must follow the ARRIVE guidelines with approving institutional committee named — see the Author Guidelines for full requirements. Manuscripts lacking this documentation are not sent for review.
Every accepted article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may copy, redistribute, and adapt the work for any purpose, including commercial use, provided appropriate credit is given to the original authors and source. Authors retain copyright; the Journal is granted a non-exclusive license to publish. There is no embargo period — articles are open access immediately on publication.
The Journal charges no article processing charge, no submission fee, and no fee to readers. It carries no paid advertising and accepts no sponsorship that could influence editorial content. The Journal's funding model and any institutional support are disclosed on its About page.
Published content is deposited with a digital preservation service (e.g., CLOCKSS or LOCKSS) so that articles remain accessible even if the Journal itself ceases publication — a requirement for DOAJ listing and a commitment to readers and authors alike.
Authors, reviewers, or readers may raise a concern about an editorial decision or about the conduct of the review process, in writing, to the editorial office. Complaints about a specific editorial decision are reviewed by an editor not involved in the original decision. Complaints about conduct or ethics are handled per Section 6.
Questions about this policy may be directed to the editorial office at maculajournal.editor@gmail.com.