Optica Policies on Conference Papers

1. Publication of Conference Papers
2. Corrections and Retractions of Conference Papers
3. Open Access

Publication of Conference Papers

Accepted and presented conference papers are indexed by Optica Publishing Group in Ei Compendex and Scopus and published on the Society's publishing platform, the world’s largest peer-reviewed collection of optics and photonics information. Full-text search and key metadata tags for conference papers are available to Google to facilitate results in its search engine and Google Scholar. 

To ensure your conference paper is not rejected solely because of formatting, be sure to follow the specific meetings requirements.  While the page length may vary by conference, basic requirements follow.

35-Word Abstract: Your abstract should be a brief summary of your paper topic. If your paper is accepted, your 35-word abstract will be included in the Conference Program. Note that the same abstract should be included in the summary as highlighted in the style guide.

2-Page Summary: All contributed authors are required to submit a final summary of their work for publication in the Technical Digest, via the Optica Publishing Group's platform. Style guides are provided in a variety of different formats to support authors’ needs. All PDF submissions MUST contain the following items in order to be published:

1. Complete title
2. Complete listing of all authors and their affiliations
3. Self-contained abstract, limited to 35-words (indexers such as Google Scholar will not index papers that do not contain abstracts)
4. Appropriate copyright statement following the abstract. By default, the copyright statement will appear as YYYY [Year of the conference] The Author(s).
5. Permission and attribution for any trademarked or copyright images. Note that images of people or images owned or trademarked by other entities (including, for example, well-known logos or cartoon characters) will also require official written permission.

IMPORTANT! Please embed all fonts; use standard fonts when possible. Problems may occur if non-English font packages (for example, Japanese, Korean or Chinese fonts, etc.) are used in the body of your paper summary, as well as in all figures and tables. Characters in these fonts cannot be seen by reviewers. In the past, we have had particular trouble with MS-PGothic, MS-Gothic, and MS-Mincho.

Proof your work before submitting. Changes or revisions are not accepted after the submission deadline. 

Style Guide: Style guides are provided in a variety of different formats to support authors’ needs. Style guides are the same for all Optica managed meetings. Be sure to confirm page count and paper size requirements for the meeting to which you are submitting.

• Download Style Guide (pdf)
• Download Style Guide (Microsoft Word)
• LaTeX Style Guide and Template (Overleaf).  NOTE: The Optica LaTeX template can be retrieved from Overleaf for use in your personal TeX system or directly in Overleaf. Authoring in Overleaf is free, with add-on features such as online collaboration available for a fee.

Optica values the role of conferences and journals to serve the optics and photonics community with high-quality, timely and relevant content. To foster the development of work in progress and to support the dissemination of results in an archival publication, Optica encourages manuscripts based partly or entirely on work presented at conferences to be submitted to an Optica Journal. Review guidelines intended to clarify our policy for authors, reviewers and editors.

Corrections and Retractions of Conference Papers

Optica recognizes its responsibility as a publisher to preserve the integrity and completeness of the scholarly record. Changes to articles after they have been published online may only be made under the circumstances outlined below. Optica's policy is based on best practice in the academic publishing community.

An Erratum is a statement by the authors of the original paper, published in the same conference proceedings, which briefly describes any correction(s) resulting from errors or omissions, noting any effects on the conclusions of the paper.

• The original paper is neither corrected nor removed from the online conference proceedings, but an erratum notice is given on the abstract page.
• The Erratum is made freely available to all readers and is linked to the original article.
• Errata are submitted to the conference papers staff at cstech@optica.org, referencing the conference and control ID of the paper, and reviewed by the conference chairs for approval.

Errors or omissions by the authors that affect the integrity of article metadata (such as author list, byline or funding) are considered at the discretion of the Publisher.

• If approved, the original article is replaced with a corrected version where possible.
• The date the correction is made is noted on the corrected article.

A Retraction is a notice that the paper should not be regarded as part of the scientific literature. Retractions can be initiated by the authors when they have discovered substantial scientific errors, and may also be issued if the Optica Editorial Ethics Review Panel has determined that misconduct has occurred, such as plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, duplicate submission, bogus authorship, etc.

• The Retraction is made freely available to all readers and is linked to the original article.
• A notice of retraction is appended to the original .pdf article and also displayed on the abstract page.
• The retraction indicates the reason for the action and who is responsible for the decision. If a retraction is made without the unanimous agreement of the authors, that is also noted.

The Optica Publishing Group does not permit publication of Addenda.

Open Access of Conference Papers

Optica does not allow an entire conference proceedings to be Open Access (regardless of whether the event was sponsored, co-sponsored or managed) with the exception of proceedings for Education and Training in Optics and Photonics (ETOP). Optica holds the copyright for each conference proceedings in aggregate. 

However, all conference proceedings’ authors retain the rights to their individual conference papers based on the license that they sign with Optica.  As such, they can freely deposit their conference papers in their institution’s or funder’s online repository to meet any requirements or mandates they may have (i.e., via the “green route”).  It is important to note though that the conference paper published on the Optica Publishing Group's platform will not be Open Access, as Optica retains the copyright to the proceedings as a whole. 

Currently, all registered technical attendees for the respective meeting have continuous, secure access to the respective conference papers through their individual Optica account.