“Ten Questions in Sports Engineering” papers will undergo a two-step review process.
Step 1
Invited authors will submit the following components of the intended paper to the (Associate) Editor that invited them to submit a “Ten Questions in Sports Engineering” paper:
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title
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abstract (max. 250 words)
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keywords
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tentative list of ten questions
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one-sentence answers to the questions
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description of expertise of the authors on the topic (max. 250 words)
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list of at least five suggested reviewers (name, title, affiliation, email address, reason for selection)
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intended submission date of full paper
The title of every paper should be similar and should start with the words: “Ten questions in Sports Engineering: …”. Two examples:
The questions should be as concise and as clear as possible. The (Associate) Editor will evaluate whether the proposed contribution fits the scope and requirements of the series of “Ten Questions in Sports Engineering” papers and whether it overlaps with a published review or other papers in Sports Engineering or other journals. If evaluated positively, the (Associate) Editor will already select at least two expert reviewers, some of which might be selected from the list of at least five suggested reviewers. The entire process will be conducted in double-blind peer review. The reviewers are welcome to improve the formulation of the questions or to suggest some other questions for consideration by the author(s). The same reviewers will afterwards evaluate the full paper. This first and preliminary review stage is handled outside the journal’s online submission system, to reduce the effort needed by the author(s) in revising the full paper afterwards.
Step 2
The author(s) will submit the revised set of components using the journal’s online submission system, together with a detailed response to reviewers, addressing every point raised by them. The full paper must not exceed 4000 words. The mandatory structure of every “Ten Questions in Sports Engineering” paper is given in the Appendix.
The maximum number of figures is 10. The maximum number of tables is 5. The introduction should address the reasons for selecting these specific questions. The answers to the questions should satisfy the requirements of original review or other papers. Authors should take care to include not only their own work but also relevant work by others in the answers to the questions. New research results cannot be introduced in the paper, as this is not the purpose of this type of paper and its limited length does not allow full description of the research that has led to the new results. Where the author(s) provide their personal view on the topic without support by literature references, this should be clearly indicated as such. Apart from the above-mentioned requirements, the “Ten Questions in Sports Engineering” papers must also adhere to the regular requirements stated in the Sports Engineering Submission Guidelines on the journal website and in the editorial “How to write a manuscript for Sports Engineering” [6]. The author(s) submit the full paper by means of the online submission system by selecting the option “Invited paper” in the submission drop-down list. The paper will be forwarded to the anonymous expert reviewers that were already selected in the preliminary review stage in step 1. This second part of the review process is similar to that for regular original research papers.