Peer Review
All manuscripts of the German Journal of Sports Medicine will be peer reviewed. This process of peer review is subject to certain principles and rules.
The journal demonstrates all necessary features that contribute to the objectivity, credibility, and quality of its contents. The journal demonstrates the evidence that authors have disclosed financial conflicts of interest.
Principles – Peer Review
Peer review ensures the quality of the journal. Manuscripts are evaluated regarding the relevance to the objectives of the journal, scientific creditability and editorial aspects like completeness, style and comprehensibility. The peer review serves to support the authors by giving advices for changes, shortening or inclusion of non-observed aspects. The process of peer review requires the principle of fairness and scientific care.
The peer review is strictly confidential. The reviewer must keep all documents and information to the manuscript strictly confidential and is not allowed to share them with other persons.
The reviewer's decision must be objective and the editors must be informed immediately about any conflicts of interest. This is especially valid for manuscripts of personal friends, close colleagues or competitors if there are personal differences. In such cases the final decision about the reviewer lies within the Editors. With submission of a manuscript, authors may provide names of possible reviewers from whom they may assume a possible personal conflict of interest. The Editors are certainly not bound to these suggestions.
Process of Peer Review
1. Correspondence is electronically for all manuscripts. Printed manuscripts will not be returned to the authors.
2. After receiving a manuscript, it will be reviewed by the Editor-in Chief or a member of the Editorial Board. A manuscript can be rejected at this stage of the review process, if it does not fulfil formal criteria or if two members of the Editorial Board conclude that it does not have sufficient merit to warrant publication.
3. The manuscript will then be sent to two other members of the Scientific Board of the Journal or to other scientific experts. The names of reviewers are blinded to the authors. The peer review includes a confidential judgement and an open part with general and especial indications and should be finished within 4 weeks.
4. The names of the reviewers will be blinded to the authors
5. The open part of peer review will be submitted to the authors together with the final decision of the Editorial Board concerning acceptance, revision with conditions or rejection of the manuscript.
6. If revision of a manuscript is requested, the authors must respond accordingly to the reviews, and have to indicate clearly any changes that have been made in the manuscript or explain differences of opinion.
7. The peer review process will be continued until a final decision about acceptance or rejection is made by the Editors.
8. The peer review process is managed and documented online via Editorial Manager.
9. Reviews and correspondence concerning the manuscripts will be kept on file for 10 years together with the manuscripts.
Principles for Inhouse Peer Review
1. In-house submissions are reports, research papers, or project outcomes, which are submitted internally to the journal. In-house submissions are contributions from editors or members of their affiliated workgroups.
2. The peer review for the scientific evaluation of in-house submissions must be carried out with particular care ensure strict impartiality and transparence of decisions.
3. The selection of reviewers is strictly based on their expertise to ensure a thorough and well-founded evaluation of the submission.
4. To ensure strict impartiality, the editors and reviewers involved in the review and editorial decisions must not have been directly or indirectly involved in the creation of the work. For in-house articles, editors are excluded from the review process, and the articles must be evaluated exclusively by external reviewers.
5. Once the review is completed, reviewers provide their feedback and comments to the editor-in-chief, who then forwards these to the author. The editor-in-chief also provides an overall assessment. If the editor-in-chief is author, a knowledgeable and independent member of the editorial board serves in this function.
6. All stages of the peer review process, including feedback and the final decision, are documented in the Editorial Manager system. This serves as a record for quality assurance and ensures transparency in the decision-making process.
7. Confidentiality: Due to the internal nature of this process, special care must be taken to protect confidential information. All participants are required to maintain confidentiality.