Reviewer training for improving grant and journal peer review

Strategies for Developing Journal Peer Reviewers: A Scoping Review

“…Some articles described training without specific mention about how it was accomplished (Chauvin et al, 2015; Goodman, 2018; Haines et al, 2017; Heim et al, 2018; Janke et al, 2017; Nguyen et al, 2015; Patel, 2014; Yarris et al, 2017). Specific training formats reported included workshops (Bhattacharya & Ellis, 2018; Bruce et al, 2016; Dhillon, 2021; Goodman, 2021; Hesselberg et al, 2020; Wagner et al, 2016; Way et al, 2021), online modules/tutorials (Blockeel et al, 2017; Chauvin et al, 2019; Goodman, 2018; Hesselberg et al, 2020; Mondal & Mondal, 2021; Neumann, 2020; Peternelj-Taylor, 2021), and courses (Gasparyan & Kitas, 2012; Hooper et al, 2018). The type of content to include in training was also reported (Barroga, 2020; Blockeel et al, 2017; Brown et al, 2017; Glonti et al, 2019; Peternelj-Taylor, 2021; Wagner et al, 2016).…”

“…Training students (Ali & Watson, 2016; Bhattacharya & Ellis, 2018; Nguyen et al, 2015; Patel, 2014; Podder et al, 2018) or providing graduate students the opportunity to review as part of their education (Ali & Watson, 2016; Kaskas et al, 2016; Mondal & Mondal, 2021; Parsi & Elster, 2018) was also reported in the literature. Aligning with teaching students how to conduct a review, the act of evaluating or rating reviewers was also reported to develop reviewers (Brown et al, 2017; Hesselberg et al, 2020; Patel, 2014; Superchi et al, 2020). This strategy involved feedback to reviewers, including the strengths and weaknesses of their review (Brown et al, 2017; Bruce et al, 2016; Goodman, 2021; Hesselberg et al, 2020; Jericho et al, 2017; Kaskas et al, 2016; Monsivais & Robbins, 2017; Schroter et al, 2018).…”

“…Aligning with teaching students how to conduct a review, the act of evaluating or rating reviewers was also reported to develop reviewers (Brown et al, 2017; Hesselberg et al, 2020; Patel, 2014; Superchi et al, 2020). This strategy involved feedback to reviewers, including the strengths and weaknesses of their review (Brown et al, 2017; Bruce et al, 2016; Goodman, 2021; Hesselberg et al, 2020; Jericho et al, 2017; Kaskas et al, 2016; Monsivais & Robbins, 2017; Schroter et al, 2018).…”

The critical role of peer reviewers: Challenges and future steps

“…Reviewer training can improve the quality of the peer-review process and potentially improve the diversity of reviewers ( Hesselberg et al, 2020 ). However, awareness must also be raised about predatory practices in publishing, which can adversely impact peer reviewers, possibly in time becoming a barrier to promotion ( el-Guebaly et al, 2021 ).…”

Towards Theorizing Peer Review

“…As a consequence, recommendations often remain too vague and unspecific to be useful in practice, or it is unclear in which settings and under which conditions they will work. For example, we recommended that funding agencies should train reviewers from the humanities to use the same criteria, as there seem to be two criteria norms among humanities scholars (Hug & Ochsner, 2021), but we did neither specify what exactly should be taught, how it should be taught, and what the precise benefits of such a training would be, nor did we connect the recommendation to the broader topic of reviewer training (Callaham, 2003;Chong, 2021;Hesselberg et al, 2020).…”