Editorial: Two years Optometry & Contact Lenses (OCL)
On 1 July, 2021, the new peer-reviewed journal of the German Association of Contact Lens Specialists and Optometrists (VDCO) "Optometry & Contact Lenses (OCL)" was published for the first time by the DOZ-Verlag, Heidelberg. OCL is a scientific and clinical journal with a German-language print version and with English-language open-access articles on the English OCL website. OCL has relatively quickly established itself nationally and internationally as a serious journal in the field of optometry and ophthalmology. This can be recognized by the number of scientific papers submitted for publication as well as the peer-reviewed articles published to date. A total of 102 articles were submitted by May 22, 2023. Together with the four publications in the current issue, 80 articles were published in the OCL. The authors of the submitted papers came from Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Mexico, Namibia, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia as well as the USA. 80 percent of the authors belonged to optometry - 20 percent to ophthalmology.
From March 1, 2022 to March 1, 2023, a total of 27,665 visitors (71,212 page views) viewed the OCL online. According to this, the visits to the German and English OCL website were from ten different countries. These were Germany (57%), USA (9.5%), Switzerland (6%), Ireland (4.5%), Austria (3.7%), Romania (3.6%), UK (2.4%), Netherlands (1.4%), India (1.3%) and France (1.2%). The top 3 articles in the same period according to Google Analytics were the following:
- Postoperative stability of refractive error after cataract surgery
- Prevalence of myopia in children and adults in Europe and North America
- Perimetric early diagnosis of primary open angle glaucoma
Optometry & Contact Lenses (OCL) is a new peer-reviewed journal in the field of eye and vision care and is currently in the process of being indexed in various scientific databases. It is expected to be listed on Google Scholar shortly. Optometry and ophthalmology have been experiencing an enormous increase of knowledge for some time, which is why a national and international discourse is more important than ever. In this context, Optometry & Contact Lenses (OCL) with its German-language print edition and the English-language OCL website with English-language open access publications provides an ideal platform for the presentation of current scientific and clinical articles for authors from German-speaking countries in Europe as well as international scientists and clinicians. OCL therefore offers an ideal forum for the presentation of their research projects. The OCL Editorial Board is committed to establishing OCL as a nationally and internationally recognized scientific journal with a high reputation. I would therefore like to thank the previous OCL authors, as well as our Scientific Advisory Board, for their great support on this road.