EMERGE-PRES peer-review mentoring programme
- Peer-review mentoring is not a part of existing pediatric rheumatology curriculum in most countries.
- The EMERGE-PRES online peer-review mentoring programme aims to fill the current world-wide gap in teaching peer-review skills to young pediatric rheumatology trainees by experienced peer reviewers.
- The objective is to train pediatric rheumatology trainees and help them develop into independent peer reviewers.
How it works:
- Mentee: A mentee is a pediatric rheumatology trainee who wants to learn peer-reviewing skills and is willing to commit dedicated time for the programme.
- Any PRES member who is a pediatric rheumatology trainee can apply to be a mentee.
- There is no cost for enrolling in the program, however the application process is competitive.
- Applications for mentees will be reviewed by the peer-review mentoring committee of EMERGE.
- Approximately 15-18 mentees will be selected based on their research interests, list of existing publications and quality of letter of intent.
- The journal selected for this programme is Pediatric Rheumatology Online Journal (PROJ) which is the official PRES journal. The editors have extended their support for the programme.
- Mentor: Mid and senior level reviewers with PROJ as suggested by the editors will be approached to be mentors.
- Participation as a mentor is voluntary and a commitment of 10-12 hours per month is anticipated.
- 5-6 mentors will be finalized for the first round of the program based on their willingness to dedicate time to the programme.
- Mentors thus selected will be matched to mentees at a ratio of 1:3, based on the research interests.
The actual process:
- The online peer-review mentoring programme will replicate the real-life peer-review process.
- After a journal has submitted a review request to a reviewer (Mentor), the mentor passes on the review article to 3 mentees via email.
- The mentor is also responsible for providing review guidelines to the mentees.
- Each mentee conducts their independent review based on the guidelines and submits it back to the mentor before the deadline indicated by the mentor.
- The mentor then scores the reviews and provides feedback to each mentee to help them improvise for the next review.
- Each cycle consisting of 6 months is expected to provide 3-4 review opportunities for the mentees.
- After 6 months, the mentees will circulate to the next mentor with a different area of expertise.
- There are 3 total cycles consisting of 6 months each. Thus, the entire program lasts for 18 months.
- After each 6-month cycle, the mentor will assess the performance of the mentees. At the end of 18 months, the successful mentees will be issued a certificate of completion.
- Completion of the programme will enable the mentees to get review requests from PROJ and other journals.
- The EMERGE-PRES peer-review mentoring team will provide continuous ongoing support and monitoring to both mentors and mentees to ensure smooth communication.
- We will encourage the mentors and mentees to communicate via video conferencing if feasible to both.
- We will also help arrange an in-person meeting of the mentors with mentees at annual PRES/EULAR meetings.
- The anticipated launch of the first cycle of the peer-review mentoring programme is March 2019.
- Application deadline for the first cycle is 1 February 2019.
CALLING FOR MENTEE APPLICATIONS NOW:
If you wish to participate in this program as a mentee, please complete a 5-minute survey by clicking on this link:https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3D732G8
Contact information:For more details email us at: emerge.peerreview@gmail.com
