PCI Health & Movement Sciences

What is Peer Community in (PCI) Health & Movement Sciences?

PCI Health & Movement Sciences is a community of associate editors called "recommenders" in the PCI system because they can ultimately recommend the preprint version of unpublished articles based on the peer review conducted in PCI. This peer review and recommendation process aims to make peer-reviewed preprints equivalent to articles published in traditional journals, retaining the preprint status, which allows authors to submit their peer-reviewed preprint to a journal for publication. Some journals accept peer-reviewed preprints directly, without further peer review (e.g., Peer Community Journal, Peer J), and others take PCI peer reviews into account (e.g., Communications in Kinesiology, European Rehabilitation Journal, PLoS Biology, PLoS One).

Once a recommender determines that the revisions made to an article are satisfactory, they proceed to write a recommendation text endorsing the article, which is published on the PCI website together with all editorial correspondence (peer reviews, authors' responses to reviewers, recommender decisions) and assigned a DOI. The preprint itself is not published by PCI Health & Movement Sciences; it remains on the preprint server where authors can post revised versions that address the reviewers' comments.

PCI Health & Movement Sciences is free of charge: There are no fees associated with the evaluation process, and no charge for access to the reviewers' comments and recommender's recommendations.

PCI Health & Movement Sciences was created and launched by Matthieu Boisgontier in November 2022. This community is part of the parent project Peer Community In, an original idea of Denis Bourguet, Benoit Facon, and Thomas Guillemaud.

Managing Board of PCI Health & Movement Sciences

Founder, Representative, & Principal Manager

Matthieu Boisgontier (University of Ottawa, Canada)

Associate Managers

Mariane Bacelar (Boise State University, USA)
Damien Brevers (UCLouvain, Belgium)
Sjoerd Bruijns (VU University, Netherlands)
Hakuei Fujiyama (Murdoch University, Australia)
Jeremie Gaveau (University of Burgundy, France)
Ségolène Guérin (Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale, France)
Franco Impellizzeri (University of Technology Sydney, Australia)
Linda McLean (University of Ottawa, Canada)

To contact the Managing Board, please send a message to contact@healthmovsci.peercommunityin.org

Editorial policy

Scope

PCI Health & Movement Sciences evaluates preprints in all fields of health and movement sciences:

Biomechanics, Exercise Physiology, Exercise & Sports Psychology, Meta-Science, Nutrition, Physical Education, Physical Activity, Health & Disease, Rehabilitation, Sensorimotor Control, Sports Performance.

PCI Health & Movement Sciences recommends preprints of high scientific quality that are methodologically and ethically sound. To this end, PCI Health & Movement Sciences:

Requires that data, computer codes, and statistical analysis scripts be made available to reviewers and recommenders at the time of submission and to readers after recommendation.
Welcomes replication studies.
Welcomes preregistered studies.
Welcomes preprints reporting negative results, provided that the research questions and the methods are sound.
Does not accept submissions of preprints that present financial conflicts of interest. Other conflicts of interest must be minimal and declared.
Ensures, to the extent possible, that the recommenders and reviewers have no conflict of interest with the content or authors of the study being evaluated.

PCI Health & Movement Sciences does not guarantee to evaluate or recommend all submitted preprints. Only preprints deemed interesting by at least one competent recommender will be reviewed. The interest of the preprint, as determined by the recommender, may be related to its context, the scientific question addressed, the methods, or the results.

Ethics

Peer Community In is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In addition:

Financial conflicts of interest are forbidden, see the PCI code of conduct.
Authors should declare any potential non-financial conflict of interest.

Complaints and Integrity Policy and Procedure

Complaints and Integrity policy and procedure are described in the versioned document found at https://osf.io/erc6x. The version applicable to a complaint is the latest version of the document at the date of the complaint.

Inclusiveness and equity

PCI is committed to equity and inclusion at all stages of the scientific article review process. PCI strives to attract more underrepresented individuals in academia among the authors submitting preprints to PCI, and reviewers, as well as among PCI recommenders and Managing Board members. Underrepresentation can relate to a variety of factors, including gender, geographical location, and career stage.

Specific recommendations are made to reviewers, recommenders, and Managing Board members to increase equity and inclusiveness in each of their tasks.

Tools to increase equity and inclusiveness:

Possibility to submit articles anonymously
Transparency in the evaluation of articles
Managing Board members take into account underrepresentation in academia when appointing new recommenders
Template messages to recommenders and reviewers include recommendations about equity and inclusiveness
Possibility to review anonymously

PCI is a signatory of the Joint Statement of Principles of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communication (C4DISC)