In accordance with the primary aim of the International Journal of Exercise Science (IJES), “to engage undergraduate and graduate students in scholarly activity as authors and reviewers as they develop into professionals,” the IJES Editorial Board has established the following policies.

Manuscript Submission

It is required that at least one author be a student (either undergraduate or graduate) at the time the data was collected, and that these students played a prominent role in the overall study. All individuals who are listed as authors should have made substantive intellectual contributions to the overall project, i.e. conception and design of study, collection or acquisition of data, analysis or interpretation of statistics, etc., and should be able to take public responsibility for the content. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship may be listed in the acknowledgments section.

Manuscript submissions should follow the guidelines outlined in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

IJES will not consider manuscripts that are simultaneously being considered by other journals, or that are redundant or duplicate in nature. All submitted manuscripts will be subject to a pre-review, which will include an originality check using Turnitin software. Please see policy below on Publication Ethics and Malpractice for further information on manuscript originality.

Following pre-review, submitted manuscripts will be evaluated through the peer-review process. In addition to providing students with an outlet for manuscript submission, IJES will engage students as peer reviewers, thus providing students with a more encompassing experience with regards to scholarly activity. Manuscripts of which a student (undergraduate or graduate) is the primary author will be reviewed by one student reviewer and one professional reviewer. Manuscripts of which a professional is the primary author will be reviewed by two professional reviewers.

Submission Fees

There are no submission fees associated with IJES.

Indexing Fee

IJES pays to index published articles in PubMed Central, the database of open-access journals within PubMed. Authors of accepted articles agree to pay a $499.00-USD indexing fee. There is no submission fee.

If the lead author of a manuscript is affiliated with an institution in a low- or middle-income country as classified by the World Bank, they can request a reduced indexing fee by contacting the editors at editor@intjexersci.com. Requests must be made before submitting the manuscript.

Authors seeking quicker turnarounds for their manuscripts can request Expedited Review for an upfront fee of $1,500.00 USD. Expedited Review guarantees peer review and a decision within seven business days from the day full payment is received. While this option does not guarantee acceptance, it covers the indexing fee if the manuscript is accepted.

Only Expedited Reviews are conducted between June 1st and July 31st each year. Regular submissions will not receive attention until August.

Peer-reviewers

All authors (student and professional) who submit a manuscript to IJES will be added to the reviewer pool and may have the opportunity to serve as a peer reviewer on future submissions. Students and professionals who have not submitted a manuscript to IJES may also be invited to serve as peer-reviewers, when necessary.

At the time of submission, authors will have the opportunity to suggest peer-reviewers who may be appropriate to review their submission. IJES reserves the right to use these suggested reviewers for the manuscripts on which they are suggested, on other submissions to IJES, or not at all.

Submitted manuscripts will be evaluated through the peer-review process. In addition to providing students with an outlet for manuscript submission, IJES will engage students as peer reviewers, thus providing students with a more encompassing experience with regards to scholarly activity. Manuscripts in which a student (undergraduate or graduate) is the primary author will be reviewed by one student reviewer and one professional reviewer. Manuscripts in which a professional is the primary author will be reviewed by two professional reviewers.

Editorial Board

Select professionals will be invited to serve on the IJES Editorial Board. These appointments will be for three-year terms, and the appointments are renewable.

Select undergraduate and graduate students will be invited to serve on the IJES Editorial Board. These positions will rotate periodically at various increments to allow a greater number of students to gain experience in the editorial office.

IJES Editors-in-Chief may remove a person from the Editorial Board at any time, and for any reason that they deem detrimental to the function of the Editorial Board or to the mission of IJES.

Review Articles

Review articles that are systematic in nature are welcomed by the journal, and if submitted will be subject to the standard peer-review process, as well as to additional pre-review by the Editor-in-Chief to determine if the review article is timely, if it fits within the scope of IJES, and if it makes a worthy contribution to the literature.

While review articles may not require the same sections as found in Original Research papers, appropriate subheadings within the manuscript text should be included. All other formatting should be consistent with standard IJES guidelines when submitting a review article for consideration. In addition, it is recommended that a summary table of articles reviewed be included within the manuscript.

Technical Notes

Technical Notes are accepted for consideration by IJES, and must follow the same formatting guidelines as manuscripts submitted as Original Research. However, any manuscript submitted as a Technical Note must be research that is focused on a new or novel piece of equipment with limited or no previously published literature, or on a new or novel methodology or research/exercise technique with limited or no previously published literature, or on a novel or narrowly defined research sample with little or no previously published literature.

Recognition, and subsequent review, as a Technical Note (rather than as an Original Research manuscript) will be determined ultimately by the Editor-in-Chief.

Case Studies

Case Studies are accepted for consideration by IJES, subject to approval by the Editor-in-Chief prior to peer-review. Case Studies must follow the same formatting guidelines as manuscripts submitted as Original Research.

References

IJES limits the number of references for original research papers to a maximum of forty (40), and technical notes to a maximum of twenty-five (25). If the work proceeds to peer review, exceptions can be requested from the handling editor. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are exempt from this policy.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice

Authors must guarantee that submitted manuscripts have not been published elsewhere, are not currently under review elsewhere, and have been submitted with the full knowledge of their institutional home.

All manuscripts are reviewed for originality using the latest, most up-to-date iThenticate software prior to being assigned for peer-review. IJES reserves the right to reject without peer-review any manuscript not meeting originality requirements, and also to inform the Institutional Review Board at the institution(s) of the offending authors.

Each author must agree that they have conformed to the ethical standards contained in the publication "Ethical Issues Relating to Scientific Discovery in Exercise Science." To acknowledge this, we require that the work is referenced in the Methodology section using the statement "This research was carried out fully in accordance to the ethical standards of the International Journal of Exercise Science" along with the following reference: Navalta JW, Stone WJ, Lyons TS. Ethical Issues Relating to Scientific Discovery in Exercise Science. Int J Exerc Sci 12(1): 1-8, 2019.

All manuscripts will be reviewed based on intellectual content without regard for age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, country of origin, or political philosophy of the authors.

All manuscripts submitted for peer-review are kept strictly confidential by editors and reviewers. At no time will editors or reviewers utilize submitted materials without the written consent of the authors.