We are thrilled to celebrate the end of the first year of the PREreview Champions Program! Over the last year, twenty Champions equipped with training, resources, and a supportive community took forward the PREreview mission to their local communities, engaging around 250 researchers globally across all career levels in open, preprint peer review. Their contributions were also invaluable in helping to further localize and contextualize our work, providing feedback on our developments, and suggesting improvements to the program itself for future cohorts. Here we want to say a huge THANK YOU to all the participants of our pilot program for all their work and dedication, and for being a key part of our community. Read on to learn more about their achievements, their reflections on the program, and our plans for the 2025 cohort!
What is the PREreview Champions Program?
As defined by CSCCE, community champions are individuals motivated to take on more responsibility for the success, sustainability, and/or running of the community. Champions can help to MAINTAIN, GROW, or EVOLVE the community and its activities.
By creating a Champions Program at PREreview we hoped to provide more incentives, recognition, and support for our community members who go above and beyond to further the mission of PREreview.
The pilot program ran for 7 months from February to September 2024. Champions were selected via an application process. We received 54 applications from 22 countries and selected 20 to participate in the program based on their knowledge of open, preprint review and their plans and ideas to take the work of PREreview forward.
Out of these, 19 completed the training program and went on to complete at least one engagement activity within their community.
Training Overview
PREreview Champions were provided with a four-part version of the PREreview Open Reviewers Training Workshop. With a focus on promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion, the workshop provides participants with the necessary skills and knowledge to conduct constructive and equitable peer reviews with the use of materials from The Open Reviewers Toolkit. We provided members of the Champions Program with an additional module focused on a ‘train-the-trainer’ element designed to empower them to extend this knowledge within their own communities.
Alongside the training sessions, Champions received the workshop materials and a Champions Handbook - an ongoing resource they could refer to for support filled with guidelines, tips, templates, and other helpful information. They also gained access to a variety of additional resources to explore and a dedicated shared drive where they could contribute and share their own. During regular catch-up calls, we also encouraged Champions to share their delivering training to others along with any materials they had created. The team reported that these calls were particularly valuable.
Champions’ Engagement Activities
To successfully complete the Champions Program we asked all Champions to complete at least one engagement activity within the 6 months of the training. The Champions team exceeded expectations, running Open Reviewers workshops for diverse audiences—from undergraduate students to faculty members—in various settings and languages. They represented PREreview at local events, authored blog posts, provided invaluable user feedback, founded new PREreview Clubs, and published reviews as part of collaborative Live Review events. According to the Champions' own reported numbers, these events reached a combined total of approximately 250 participants worldwide.
Their dedication also played a key role in making PREreview more accessible worldwide. By offering insights and assisting with the localization and translation of our materials (with translated Open Review Toolkits on the way!), they have helped shape a more inclusive experience for researchers everywhere. Thanks to these efforts, future Champions Programs will be even more responsive to participants’ needs and better equipped to scale the training, making it easier for others to carry the torch forward and provide training in preprint peer review to researchers of all career levels around the globe.
Some examples of their engagement efforts include:
Lamis Elkheir and Sahar Mohamednour collaborated to run an Arabic Open Reviewers workshop and subsequently a Live Review event for undergraduate students in collaboration with the Pharmaceutical Studies and Research Association at the University of Khartoum.
Juan Bizzotto, Maria Sol Ruiz, and María Eugenia Segretin are running a Spanish language Open Reviewers workshop for early career scientists at the School of Science at the Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile, Janaynne Carvalho do Amaral, Kylie Dan, and Allegra Spensieri all ran Open Reviewers workshops, with a specific focus on bias in peer review, at their institutions in the US and Canada, and Femi Arogundade and Lamis Elkheir collaboratively facilitated an online 2-hour Open Reviewers workshop for the PREreview Community.
Ebuka Ezeike and Seun Olufemi both wrote guest blog posts on the PREreview blog on ‘How Collaborative Peer Review Can Transform Scientific Research’ and ‘Championing Preprints: A Call for Recognition in African Research Settings’.
Christoforos Pavlakis, Lonni Besançon, and Muhammad Imtiaz Subhani all gave talks about PREreview and the benefits of preprint, open, preprint review to different audiences including at a working group of COST Action Voices, at Linköping University and KTH Royal Institute of Technology and the FORCE11 Scholarly Communication Institute.
Anna Oliveras Martinez, Cesar Acevedo-Triana, and Femi Arogundade all mentored others in the use of PREreview including in activities such as starting a PREreview Club and contributing to Live Reviews.
Not only that but Janaynne Carvalho do Amaral, Juan Bizzotto, Maria Sol Ruiz, Pablo Ranea Robles, Cesar Acevedo-Triana, Sahar Mohamednour, Lamis Elkheir, and Samir Hachani all contributed to translating the Open Reviewers Toolkit and other resources into other languages including Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, and French.
What did our Champions think of the pilot program?
At the conclusion of the pilot program, Champions were invited to complete a brief feedback survey and join a group summary call. Those who preferred a more personal approach also had the option to share their insights in a one-on-one call. We were truly moved by the feedback we received, not only was much of it incredibly positive and heartfelt, but it also reflected a remarkable level of thoughtfulness, care, and a deep commitment to improving the program for future cohorts. Below are some highlights from what they shared.
Highlights that Champions mentioned included:
“The highly interactive nature of the training sessions”
“I found the material to be clear, the discussions were constructive and concise, and the review felt truly collaborative”
“I loved the resources provided, and the attention from the PREreview team to all the details of the program and the communication with us”
“I liked the inclusive environment, how supportive everyone was, I felt really appreciated, encouraged, and valued.”
“The amazing support from the PREreview team and the cohort of diverse trainees with different experiences and backgrounds”
“To meet champions from around the world and from different expertise backgrounds”
Some of the things they found more challenging or thought could be improved included:
“The opportunity to present a demo session and get feedback on how to improve our skills and how to conduct more inclusive and engaging workshops”
“There was an initial learning curve…it took some time to fully grasp and apply these concepts effectively.”
“Lack of time”
“Net was down sometimes”
“Coordinating sessions across different time zones was a tiny bit difficult.”
“Language barriers”
“More follow-up calls”
“Possibly splitting the group into sub-groups to better enable sharing of skills and ideas.”
“More contact between the Champions”
One of the most energizing findings from the feedback survey and in conversation with Champions was how many of them wish to continue to be part of the program going forward, supporting new cohorts of Champions in 2025 and beyond.
What’s next?
So what is next for the PREreview Champions Program? Well, we are happy to announce that applications for our next cohort will open in January 2025 with the program planned to officially start in March 2025.
Next year, we’re implementing several exciting updates to make the program even better, including:
- A More Interactive Training Program: We’re revamping the training to provide more interactivity and opportunities for Champions to practice their facilitation skills.
- Increased Flexibility Across Time Zones: We’re making it easier for Champions around the world to engage meaningfully, no matter where they’re located.
- Enhanced Support for Multilingual Engagement: With clearer guidelines and additional resources, we’re committed to supporting Champions who engage in languages other than English.
- More Team Connectivity: We’ll be hosting more catch-up calls and online meetups to foster a stronger community.A buddy system to help connect Champions and enable greater collaboration within the team.
- A Buddy System: To build connections within the team, we’ll pair Champions with buddies for collaboration and support.
- Mentoring and Ongoing Engagement: Champions will have access to mentoring training, along with new ways to stay involved after the program ends.
Applications open in January, so stay tuned for more updates! If you’d like an email reminder when applications open, fill out our Expression of Interest form.
If you have further suggestions on how we can improve the program or wish to collaborate with us in any way, we would love to hear from you at community@prereview.org.
About the author
Vanessa Fairhurst is Head of Community at PREreview. She is based in Oxford, UK, and outside of campaigning for more equity in scholarly peer review, you can find her reading fantasy fiction, playing board games, and going for long walks by the river.
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