WELCOME TO SPORTSCIENCE
	Will Hopkins

After months of debate and millions of mouse clicks, here we are at last with a site devoted to research on human physical performance. The Web is now the place to be for publishing, and we hope to make this the best Web site for sport science.

Who's "we", anyway? At the time of writing it's an eclectic group of 20, recruited mainly through the Sportscience e-mail list. You can read more about us on the Contact Us page.

Please note well that we are www.sportsci.org, NOT www.sportsci.com. If you type in com by mistake, you'll get a commercial site. The org in www.sportsci.org means ours is not commercial. So we're doing all this for fun, for the academic challenge, and for the benefit of our colleagues and students. The costs of hosting the site are being met by our sponsor, the Royal Society of New Zealand. We'd like to hear ASAP from similar potential sponsors or academic institutions who could host mirror sites in North America and Europe.

Org is, of course, short for organization. What organization? We had to specify one to get the domain name, so we've called ourselves the Internet Society for Sport Science. In the long run we'll probably need office bearers, elections, and accountability to the international community of sport scientists. Or we could affiliate ourselves to another organization promoting sport science. We're open to suggestions.

Meanwhile, we're not going to turn this site into a club exclusively for academics. Instead, it will be a place where everyone interested in the study of human physical performance can share their experience and knowledge. The emphasis will be on originality: you'll find things here that you won't find elsewhere on the Net. To protect that originality, we're not allowing anyone to copy our material to any networked sites. You can download it for personal use, of course, but we want you to come here to get it.

Here's a summary of what's on each of our pages.

News & Homepage.  You're reading it! An e-zine of opinion, events, people, and places in the real and virtual world of sport and exercise science.

Tour & Help has the same description of the site you're reading now, plus advice on how to set up Netscape, and solutions to problems you might encounter at the site.

Forum.  The Sportscience e-mail discussion list, on the Web. Read the latest messages, post your own message, do searches, subscribe or unsubscribe... all right here! The current format is draft only. We hope to have an improved interface shortly.

Journal.  By the end of this year, hopefully: Sportscience, an electronic and printed journal specializing in human physical performance. See the feature in the first edition of the New, then go to the journal page to see the format and how it will work.

Research Resources. Original material of particular interest to sport-science teachers, researchers, and research students.

Training & Technology. Objective reviews and contact information for products and services aimed at enhancing training and performance. This page will be of particular interest to athletes, coaches, and trainers.

Net Links. Web and e-mail addresses for sport-science information elsewhere on the Net.

Net Search. Looking for a Web site, e-mail messages or addresses, a Web site, publication references? We provide a link to the best search engine for each search, with notes to guide you.

Contact Us is where you can meet each member of the Sportscience team.

If you've got something to offer for any of the above pages, join in. Find out how in the next item of news.