Editorial Procedures and Peer-Review

The Physical rehabilitation and recreational health technologies journal adheres to a double-blind peer review policy. The editorial process consists of two stages: Initial Checks and Peer-Review.

Initial Checks (4 days)

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a professional in-house Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal, including those for human and animal experimentation. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief  to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief.

Peer-Review and Editorial Decision (14 days)

If the article is not rejected at the preliminary review stage, it is submitted for review. Each article is usually reviewed by two independent reviewers (there may be more if necessary, and in some cases the review process may be based on the report of only one reviewer), after which the member of the editorial board in charge of the relevant scientific issue decides on publication in one of the following ways:

• Accept after Minor Revisions:
  The paper is in principle accepted after revision based on the reviewer’s comments. Authors are given five days for minor revisions.
• Reconsider after Major Revisions:
  The acceptance of the manuscript would depend on the revisions. The author needs to provide a point by point response or provide a rebuttal if some of the reviewer’s comments cannot be revised. Usually, only one round of major revisions is allowed. Authors will be asked to resubmit the revised paper within a suitable time frame, and the revised version will be returned to the reviewer for further comments.
• Reject and Encourage Resubmission:
  If additional experiments are needed to support the conclusions, the manuscript will be rejected and the authors will be encouraged to re-submit the paper once further experiments have been conducted.
• Reject:
  The article has serious flaws, and/or makes no original significant contribution. No offer of resubmission to the journal is provided.

In cases of review, authors are given a 2-week deadline to return revised manuscripts. Any extension of this period should be discussed with the Deputy Editor-in-Chief.