Teaching Students about Peer Reviews

December 19, 2019 Author: Read time: 1 min

Graphic of a spotlight on a red background shining onto the words "Faculty Spotlight"

Dr. Joel Smith explains how he uses Packback to teach students how the peer-review process works

Understanding the peer review process is important for advanced science students, especially as they graduate and start conducting research in their field. However, as Dr. Joel Smith noticed, many students don’t fully understand how peer reviews work. Dr. Smith wanted to give his students practice with peer reviews and started using Packback. He’s found Packback to be a beneficial tool in getting students to read research articles and share their ideas for why a piece of literature should or should not be published in an academic journal.

INSTITUTION

Florida State University

DEPARTMENT

Chemistry

COURSE

Advanced Organic Chemistry

SIZE

10 Students

“We’ve been using Packback to teach students about the peer review process doing organic chemistry research…We utilize the platform to give them the opportunity to read a research article that is assigned to them and read all the background information and give an informed peer review of whether the article given to them should be accepted or rejected into the journal that it actually has been published in the past.”