Pre- and Post-Course Assignments

Pre-course Assignment

Rationale

• Gauge the baseline peer review ability of participants
• Baseline ability can be used as a guide to help with assigning the workshop groups

Assignment description

We request four manuscripts from the partner journal that have passed the peer review stage, but have not yet been published from our journal partner. If not working without a journal partner, any published paper or pre-print would also be sufficient. In order to simulate a “real” peer review process, the participants are then asked to write a review for one of the four manuscripts as if they were getting the request directly from the journal. They then have two weeks to complete the review and are able to request an extension if needed.

Related email templates

• Email: Pre-course assignment

Pre-course assignment

SUBJECT: Pre-course assignment Dear Reviewer, We are contacting you today with some important instructions and your pre-course assessment. Below this email, you will find a BMJ reviewer invitation email that has been modified for our program. Attached, you will find the article to be peer reviewed and any supplemental information (including any checklists) that were submitted by the authors. To simulate “real-world” reviewing conditions, we request that you submit your peer reviewer report within 2 weeks time (by noon on DD MM YYYY). You can use any resources available to you in order to complete the review. We ask that you do not discuss your review report with other Peerspectives participants. If you are not able to meet this deadline, we can give you an extension of one additional week, if you request this by email. Please draft your reviewer report using the attached form and send your report to [YOUR EMAIL] on or before the deadline. Forms should be returned as a DOCX or PDF file with the following naming convention: Lastname_Firstname_Pre-Assessment. However, do keep in mind that this is a real, submitted manuscript that is currently under review at the BMJ. Therefore, you must adhere to the confidentiality agreement you signed as a part of the Peerspectives program and not disclose any information about the article to anyone outside of the framework of this assessment. Please under no circumstances upload your review online, contact the BMJ directly, or contact any of the authors of your assigned manuscript! Also note that your comments submitted for this assessment will not be sent to the authors, as it is an assessment exercise as part of your training in the course.  Once you have completed the assignment, please delete all assessment files. The course instructors will review your submitted assessment to get an idea of your abilities prior to the start of the course. As with all course assignments, your name will be submitted to them together with the assessment. We therefore encourage you to complete the assignment with your best effort, as if it is a real peer-review assignment. Do not hesitate to contact us by email if you have any questions related to the course or assessment logistics. Please note, however, that we cannot answer any content-related questions pertaining to the first assessment. Best wishes, [YOUR NAME] Peerspectives Team

• Email: Pre-course assignment reminder

Peerspectives Pre-Course Assignment: Due in X Days

SUBJECT: Peerspectives Pre-Course Assignment: Due in X Days Dear Reviewer, Recently, you agreed to review manuscript [MANUSCRIPT CODE] titled "[MANUSCRIPT TITLE].” This is a reminder that your review is due in [X] days on MM D YYYY, at 12:00 CEST. *Due to current circumstances we understand that you may need more time than usual to complete your review - please let us know if you need a 1-week extension by replying to this email*. Sincerely, [YOUR NAME] The Peerspectives Team

Post-course Assignment

Rationale

• Assess participants' growth from the course

Assignment description

We use the same four manuscripts that were distributed as the pre-course assignment. For the post-course assignment, we recommend that each participant be assigned one of the four pre-course assignments that they have not previously reviewed.

The teaching team provides feedback on the post-course assignment following submission.

Ideally, based on the timeframe of the course, the manuscripts that the participants have reviewed for the pre and post course assignments will be published shortly after the completion of the course. This way the participants will be able to compare their own reviews to the published reviews for the papers (if partnering with an open review journal).