The Open Medicine student peer review program

Open Medicine has provided an opportunity to acquire experience in peer review for a group of graduate students in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary. To date, approximately 40 students have regularly participated in the peer review of manuscripts for Open Medicine. Participating students attend group sessions on the practicalities of reviewing papers, the revision and resubmission process, and specific topic areas that arise from particular papers. Through these experiences, the students have gained insight into the importance of quality peer review, Open Access publication and research reporting guidelines. Open Medicine encourages the proliferation of similar programs at other universities, as this valuable part of medical research is not formally taught in most graduate health research programs.