Reviewing Across Disciplines: A Hands-On Peer Review Series
Facilitated by Dr. Kathy Berlin, Associate Professor of Health Science and Executive Editor of the Journal of Scholarship and Teaching and Learning, this series will begin with a two-part interactive virtual workshop which is designed to support faculty in developing expertise in reviewing Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) manuscripts across academic disciplines. Participants will explore the peer review process from both conceptual and practical angles—starting with how to assess manuscript fit for journals, evaluate key manuscript components, and understand their role as reviewers. Building on that foundation, the second session offers hands-on experience writing constructive, respectful feedback using real examples. Through collaborative activities and mentored practice, faculty will gain the confidence, skills, and cross-disciplinary awareness needed to become thoughtful and effective peer reviewers. While the workshop focuses on SoTL, these basic principles can be applied to disciplinary research article reviews as well, extending the benefits of this series into the discipline.
Both workshops will be 75-minutes long and will be held on Zoom. The second workshop will be followed by a collaborative article review opportunity . More information about this will be provided at the workshop. Through this opportunity, you will be able to put into practice what you’ve learned at the workshop in a mentored and collaborative space.
The overarching goals of this series are :
- Build faculty capacity to serve as effective and ethical peer reviewers for academic journals.
- Foster a community of practice around peer review, encouraging faculty to contribute to and learn from the scholarly publishing process.
- Develop faculty capacity to write high-quality, respectful, and discipline-sensitive reviews of SoTL manuscripts.
- Promote a culture of scholarly dialogue that values cross-disciplinary perspectives in advancing the SoTL.
- Foster confidence in faculty reviewers through hands-on review practice, mentorship, and reflection on reviewing within and beyond one’s own discipline.
- Enhance faculty members’ own scholarly writing by deepening their understanding of effective manuscript structure, argumentation, and clarity through the review process.
This workshop model draws inspiration from Associate Professor Karin Watson’s work at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) on the “Peer Reviewer of Journals Mentoring Program.” The program, in collaboration with Teaching and Learning Inquiry (published by the International Society of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning [ISSOTL]), is now in its third year and has been recognized internationally for its contribution to enhancing SoTL authorship skills.
Workshop description and registration links are available in the SoTL event listing page.
Note: We recommend attending both virtual workshops for the most benefit from this series.
