This course introduces students to the current state of scientific and academic research, peer review, and publication as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic. The course will center around the work of Rapid Reviews: COVID-19, a new open access, rapid-review overlay journal that intends to accelerate peer review of COVID-19-related research by soliciting and publishing open-access reviews for manuscripts posted on pre-print servers. Course lectures (taking place over two-hour slots every week) will feature guest lecturers and will cover concepts including 1) Critical assessment of COVID-19 research 2) scientific publishing and the role of pre-prints 3) Editorial components (Writing/Editing, Technical communications, and “preprints and the press”) 4) Leveraging digital tools for science/research advocacy (including lectures by the COVID Scholar group out of LBNL). Guest lecturers from the scientific community, academic publishing, and the press will offer their perspectives, experiences, and lessons learned from dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Throughout the course, students will then apply these concepts weekly to the current, real-world context by reviewing COVID-19 related papers posted to pre-print servers, and identifying important or interesting manuscripts. They will present their “top” paper during a pitch meeting and will receive feedback from course facilitators, RR:C19 editorial staff, and volunteer doctoral students. Throughout the course, students will gain critical and creative-thinking experience in applying tools and frameworks towards addressing an important public issue: accelerating the dissemination of important research findings while curbing the spread of misinformation related to COVID-19.

The class will be graded based on participation, short assignments, and student pitches. For their pitches, students will get the opportunity to present their picks for important published pieces in their selected domain from the preprints they have reviewed.