Vision Science Academy: Annual Report 2020-21

Prepared by – Dr. Abhishek Mandal, Founder

 

The vision science academy (VSA) is a newly found scientific initiative directed at the provision of high-quality eye-care education to those individuals who are passionate about pursuing their careers in visual sciences, be it optometry or ophthalmology. This informative platform aims at engaging the young as well as the veteran minds of the field simultaneously by imparting them key research-based education in the form of state-of-the-art, peer-reviewed articles pertinent to the visual sciences.

The organization of VSA was launched only recently in 2020, and since then, the VSA team has expanded across several nations to evolve into a global knowledge sharing institute. Throughout the previous year, the VSA has progressed by leaps and bounds.

What has the VSA achieved so far?

Following are a few highlights of the academic career of the team VSA so far:

1. Company registration

Soon after its foundation, the VSA was registered as a company on February 4, 2020. Moreover, the VSA also got registered with the information commissioner office (ICO) in the U.K. VSA is now enlisted alongside other educational bodies in the U.K.

2. Website launch

The first official VSA website (visionscienceacademy.org) was launched on June 1, 2020. The website offers free access to top-notch blog content based on various emerging topics of the optometry profession. Till now, more than 80 scientific blogs have been published here following a thorough editorial review.

3. Newsletters

The academy has successfully published up to 11 newsletters from July 2020 to May, 2021. These newsletters have helped educate the specialists of the field regarding the recent advances in the diagnostic and treatment strategies of various eye-related disorders.

4. Journal of Vision Science

Journal of Vision Science has been formally launched under the patronage of the VSA. The journal offers young and aspiring optometrists a golden opportunity to publish their own valuable ideas and concepts. The journal currently accepts all types of research work, while the articles can be published timely. Some examples of these articles include original articles, literature reviews, data sets, null results, protocols, case reports, incremental findings and many others. The greatest perks of publishing your research here is that the author gets to choose their research topic themselves while the journal seldom creates any barriers in the editing process as the authors get to nominate their own peer reviewers themselves.

5. The VSA Network

The VSA team has recently developed a team of more than 20 volunteers across the globe. The volunteers are keenly involved in arranging informative online meetings or webinars, imparting the viewers a wealth of knowledge on different cutting-edge ideas of the field. Over the past year, more than 700 great minds of the field have joined this online platform as full members and are now contributing to the transformation of the VSA into an international institute.

6. Global Outreach

The VSA has been collaborating with multiple internationally renowned research institutes. These include the Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) which provided the VSA with a business endorsement in October, 2020. The academy has also collaborated with 2 U.K based organizations, ECOTIC Labs and KBR Foundation, to raise funds for awarding cash prizes to outstanding blog writers. So far, 300 GBP have been distributed among 11 innovative bloggers worldwide.

7. VSA events

Since its inception, the academy has conducted a total of 9 webinars. The details of various online events are as follows:

• An interview with Ken Brandt in September, 2020 where the distinguished guest discussed about his book “Positive Vision.”
• A webinar held during November 2020 on various emerging topics in the field of vision sciences.
• A webinar with Natasha Wilch in November, 2020 where she discussed the significance of telehealth in optometry.
• In November 2020, another international webinar was held in collaboration with the Shree Guru Gobind Singh Tricentenary (SGT) University where modern trends in the management of amblyopia were discussed.
• A virtual session regarding electronic medical records (EMR) system was held with the collaboration of WYNK in February, 2021.
• International women’s day was celebrated on 7^th of March, 2021 with the theme “choose to challenge.”
• In collaboration with Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital, the world optometry day was held on 21^st March, 2021 while the world glaucoma week was celebrated on 14th March, 2021. The VSA in association with the eye hospital, has successfully held multiple CME events where 700+ individuals officially registered to attend the webinars.
• In May, 2021, Dr. Timos Naskas held a virtual science talk based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging for various eye disorders.

8. Blog Competitions

Over the past year, the VSA team has conducted 3 blog competitions and 1 ophthalmic photography competition where young talent has been encouraged to present their novel ideas in front of the optometry experts.

 Future Directions

The staff of vision science academy pledges to move forward with several new initiatives for this educational organisation. Team VSA will always be there to cater the needs of its young, talented scientific writers and promote the modern art of technical learning among its enthusiastic members. We plan to bring forth many new internationally coordinated ventures in near future. For more information, stay tuned!