The Quality Assessment of Sport Technologies Special Interest Group is comprised of members from academia, industry, and sports interested in advancing the development and implementation of sport technology using research-driven and evidence-based standards and best practices.
‘Quality Assessment of Sport Technologies’ Special Interest Group
Need
Tech use is growing everywhere, and sport is no exception. The sport industry is not keeping pace with this growth.
Stakeholders, from sport governing bodies to investors, struggle to effectively evaluate and integrate new technologies.
Lack of consensus standards and education around this topic make it particularly difficult to navigate.
As tech continues to outpace expertise in sport, regulation and/or upskilling will need to ensue to limit risk of injury, data breach, etc.
Objectives
Establish a Quality Framework
To develop a standardized, evidence-based framework which can be adopted by sport technology stakeholders to assess the value, usability, and quality of technology, as well as develop and improve new and existing products.
Educate Technology Stakeholders
To provide education to key stake holders, and in particular to advance curricula at the undergraduate and graduate level, to improve decision-making around development, evaluation, and implementation of sport technology.
Promote Research & Development
To encourage research on quality assessment and development of additional tools for the assessment process, including ongoing refinement of the quality framework and development of case studies.
Stakeholders
Governing bodies adopt technologies with unproven safety and efficacy, because they are not well equipped to vet technology prior to league-wide contracts nor to optimize technology implementation after acquisition.
Sports and health organizations waste resources on ineffective technology and sub-optimal results, because they do not have the time or expertise to evaluate potential technology.
Athlete associations need to ensure their members experience positive value and are not overly burdened or put at risk by technology adoption.
University graduates perpetuate the cycle of poor evaluation and implementation of sport technology, because they do not receive adequate training as part of their education.
Investors improperly value technology, because they do not have a clear process for assessing its quality.
Technology companies miss opportunities to improve their product and gain customer trust, because they do not have a transparent standard against which to benchmark.
Researchers have difficulties bringing their findings to market because they're not fully aware of which industry & field practice requirements to take into account.
Professional accrediting bodies lack the educational content to empower members to effectively adopt technology in their professional practices.
Other industry sectors, including Medicine, Defense, and Occupational Health, adopt unvetted or inappropriate technology, because they rely on its use in sport as a primary quality indicator.
The general public struggles to improve health and fitness with technology, because they do not have the knowledge to make informed decisions around sport tech adoption.
Members
Sam RobertsonChair // Professor of Sports Analytics at Victoria University (Australia)
Jessica ZendlerCo-chair // Special Consultant and Forensic Engineer in Sports, Biomechanics, and Human Factors
Kristof De MeyCo-chair // PhD in sports physical therapy at Ghent University; Sports Technology, Innovation & Business Developer
Dhruv SeshadriPhD at CWRU Biomedical Engineering. Wearable Tech - Digital Health - Bioelectronics.
Garrett AshUsing continuous glucose monitors and other wearables to develop personally tailored physical activity interventions for people with diabetes.
Sam McIntoshList & Recruitment Analyst/Researcher at Victoria University. Researching team sport performance data to improve decision-making.
Camilla BrockettAssociate Professor / Sport Performance and Systems at Victoria University
Billy SperlichProfessor at University of Würzburg │Integrative & Experimental Exercise Science & Training
Jade HaycraftResearch Fellow (Sport Science) at Victoria University. Focused on validating sport technology, with background in S&C + talent identification
Joe RogowskiChief Medical Officer at National Basketball Players Association (NBPA)
What's the current status of this work?
We are currently composing the framework and will be reaching out to industry and other stakeholders for further feedback during the next weeks and months. Want to be part of the process?
