The UCSC STEM Postdocs Association (USPA) is holding an event sponsored by the open access journals Bio-protocol and eLife on 11/7, 12 pm in Biomed 200.
Both journals have opportunities for early career researchers (e.g. postdocs) to serve as a reviewer. We also encourage PIs to attend and share their thoughts on peer review and learn about the publishing process at these journals.
Bio-protocol is a journal dedicated to making methods easily reproducible. The journal publishes methods that are novel or serious improvements to the methods that are commonly used. Opportunities exist for senior graduate students and postdocs to review papers in conjunction with editors. Dennis Bua, the Director of Communications at Bio-protocol, will speak about how early career researchers can get involved.
eLife is a broad interest, open access, non-profit journal founded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust, and led by scientists. eLife is determined to improve the publishing process and has pioneered new models of open peer review (e.g. reviews are published with the article). eLife has recently launched an early career peer review program for postdocs to participate with senior scientists in eLife’s joint review process. Jordan Ward, an Assistant Professor in the MCDB department, and an eLife Ambassador and eLife Reviewer, will talk about eLife’s peer review process.
Why learn about peer review?
-Learning about the process and seeing how paper’s are evaluated can help you figure out the best way to present your own work and get it published.
-Reviewing in your own name at journals can help establish credentials for various documents and career advancement opportunities (e.g. EB-1A greencards).
-Serving as a reviewer helps everyone get quicker decisions on their manuscripts. Hopefully someone will repay the favor so that your papers won’t sit on an editor’s desk for months!
Registration encouraged via the following link:
https://goo.gl/forms/cbcqP1KT2n67WtqW2
