We would like to help our authors and reviewers understand OSA editorial policy on the use of a conference paper as the basis for an article in JOSA A [1].

Clearly, plagiarism is unacceptable, and most authors understand plagiarism to mean the use of published work (ideas, text, figures, or equations) without citing the source appropriately. This issue becomes more nuanced when the published work in question is one’s own, particularly in the context of a journal article expanding on a previously published conference proceeding.

OSA journals have therefore recently updated their policy on conference papers [1] to emphasize the value to the optics and photonics community of high-quality, timely, and relevant content from conferences. The policy states, “To foster the development of work in progress and to support the dissemination of results in an archival publication, OSA encourages manuscripts based partly or entirely on work presented at conferences.” This means that a conference paper may form the basis of a journal article without being considered self-plagiarism, or compromising the novelty of the journal article, so long as the article is “expanded, revised, and/or refined to add value to the conference proceedings.”

When preparing a journal article that is based on a conference paper, it is important to keep in mind three key points.

While we hope that the first two items have always been evident, the third is more challenging. The views in the community and at the OSA have changed over time, and now, with the updated editorial policy, they have been clarified.

Allowing authors to reuse their introductory material and well-crafted explanations serves the community better than the ritual of rewriting that material, thesaurus in hand, in the service of a perceived dedication to originality. The resultant journal article must nonetheless offer significant intellectual content not available in the proceedings. This aspect of the originality of the article is much more important than whether or not a few sentences of introduction and historical context are repeated.

A manuscript shepherded by one of us within the past year is illustrative. A large portion (approximately 40%) of the submitted manuscript appeared in a previous conference paper by the same authors. The authors failed to cite their prior work or obtain permission to reuse it. Reviewers correctly identified the overlap and missing reference and raised it as a concern. After ensuring the authors corrected the citation and permission oversights, however, we accepted and published the revised version of the paper. The text reused from the conference paper was well written and the end result of painstaking care by the authors to get the explanation just right, so it was appropriate to allow its reuse in this context.

As always, we hope that JOSA A will be a valuable resource to our readers and our authors, and that the policies and procedures of the Journal best serve the community. Your input or questions are welcome.