Becki Lijek

faculty @MtHolyoke studying host-pathogen interactions, undergraduate biology educator, advocate for early career researchers with @FoRsymp, she/her pronouns

[Becki Lijek @DrLijek]

@F1000Research @GaryMcDowellPhD Thank YOU for citing our research and leading the way for ECR co-reviewers!

[Becki Lijek @DrLijek]

@GaryMcDowellPhD @eLife @FORsymp @harvardmpa1 @TRANSPOSEsci @ASAPbio_ @C0PE @PREreview_ @Neurosarda So, there are some plans in the works - from our end, mostly now at the undergrad not #postdoc level, working on a specific curriculum on peer review for the upcoming year...stay tuned!

57/n

[Becki Lijek @DrLijek]

@GaryMcDowellPhD @eLife @FORsymp @harvardmpa1 @TRANSPOSEsci @ASAPbio_ @C0PE @PREreview_ @Neurosarda For formation of identity as a scientist, participation in authentic experiences is critical. And for creating a scientifically literate population, it makes a lot of sense to educate college students, or even earlier, about the publishing process and how peer review works.

56/n

[Becki Lijek @DrLijek]

@GaryMcDowellPhD @eLife @FORsymp @harvardmpa1 @TRANSPOSEsci @ASAPbio_ @C0PE @PREreview_ @Neurosarda Journal clubs provide a forum for discussing a paper, but can be too late to provide feedback to authors. Preprints by their nature provide an opportunity for giving feedback from those actively soliciting critiques of their work.

54/n

[Becki Lijek @DrLijek]

@GaryMcDowellPhD @eLife @FORsymp @harvardmpa1 @TRANSPOSEsci @ASAPbio_ @C0PE @PREreview_ @Neurosarda Preprints provide such an opportunity for training in peer review, because there are no journal barriers to access - any one can participate as a reviewer, no matter your career stage. And we think it’s important to provide *authentic* peer review experiences to ECRs.

53/n

[Becki Lijek @DrLijek]

@GaryMcDowellPhD @eLife @FORsymp @harvardmpa1 @TRANSPOSEsci @ASAPbio_ @C0PE Along the way, I’ve been collecting data on how teaching peer review impacts ECRs, which I presented at #ASMCUE this summer. I see that explicit teaching of review not only improves this skills but also ECRs sense of belonging in science.

46/n

[Becki Lijek @DrLijek]

@GaryMcDowellPhD @eLife @FORsymp @harvardmpa1 @TRANSPOSEsci @ASAPbio_ @C0PE I’ve been teaching peer review in my STEM courses and having students review covid19 preprints. It’s been transformative! So much so that I’m splitting that out into its own, standalone, new course on peer review using preprints this spring.

45/n

[Becki Lijek @DrLijek]

@GaryMcDowellPhD @ASAPBIO @eLife @FORsymp @harvardmpa1 We carried out a survey and framed the discussion as an investigation into co-reviewing - potentially a good practice, where ECRs are trained and their role is known to the journal - vs ghostwriting of peer reviews. See: https://t.co/jUI6I1DRFt

19/n

[Becki Lijek @DrLijek]

@GaryMcDowellPhD @ASAPBIO @eLife @FORsymp @harvardmpa1 In short, we wanted to get a handle on what was actually going on: was the practice as common as we suspected? And what do scientists think about it? Was it exploitative, providing training, or both? What was driving this? Prohibitive journal policies? A training vacuum?

18/n