Sidle up to the AUA Reviewer Rodeo
New event spotlights recruiting, training and retaining volunteer reviewers.
The AUA is looking for the next generation of reviewers for urology-specific abstracts, clinical guidelines, papers and grants. This year, the AUA is extending an invitation to members to join its prestigious membership of peer reviewers via the first-time Reviewer Rodeo event at AUA2024 in San Antonio.
The event, which takes place 1-3 p.m. Friday, May 3, in Room 217C, is designed to offer insight into the many volunteer reviewer opportunities at the AUA. AUA Director of Publications and Executive Editor Jennifer Regala said the event replaces the former Editors’ Workshop as a method of recruiting, training and retaining reviewers. Specifically, the event will give attendees first-hand knowledge from AUA’s top reviewers about how to review meeting abstracts, clinical guidelines, papers and grant applications. The all-star cast of reviewers will also provide hands-on, small-group opportunities to review different kinds of submissions. 
“There are plenty of qualified AUA members who may be unaware of the many volunteer reviewer opportunities with the AUA,” Regala said. “In fact, we decided an open-call approach for reviewers is a better choice over an appointment approach because we have so many good candidates who could fill the role.”
The idea for a Reviewer Rodeo, Regala said, came from the AUA Peer Review Workgroup: A Collaborative Examination of Reviewer Recruitment, Retention and Reward Opportunities. Workgroup members, including AUA Guidelines Director Erin Kirkby, Annual Meeting Programs Coordinator Katie Phipps, AUA Research Director Christine Riordan plus Regala, assessed the number of reviewers needed by each of AUA’s four program/project areas.
Currently, approximately 6,545 volunteer peer reviewers are needed to evaluate AUA outputs annually, Regala said.
“These are not 6,545 unique individuals. Many of these volunteers are faithful reviewers for each of our program areas,” she said. “Additionally, many individuals accept and complete multiple peer review tasks within a program area or program areas.”
It might seem like a lot, but Regala said AUA’s contribution and influence in producing abstracts, guidelines, papers and grants in recent years has grown by leaps and bounds—and that’s a good thing.
For urologists who want to know more about the various opportunities, Regala explained how review works for each of the program areas. For Annual Meeting abstracts, reviewers (approximately 800 total) are assigned to a review team based on their area of expertise. They have 3 weeks to provide scores and comments. Following the review period, team leaders (approximately 85 total, typically one per subcategory and selected from the pool of reviewers) will build the poster, podium and video sessions based on the scores and comments provided by the reviewers.
Following implementation of an open comment period, the Guidelines team typically distributes invitations to 100-plus subject matter experts per guideline in addition to other interested stakeholders. The Guidelines team also requires reviewers for guideline amendments, which are much smaller in scope to address targeted updates to previously published guidelines, in addition to document endorsements and topic assessments. With the ultimate goal of providing members with high-quality evidence-based guidance, the Guidelines team strives to have each guideline reviewed by a diverse reviewer pool representative of the end users of the guideline itself.
The Publications team needs reviewers across the entire suite of AUA publications, including The Journal of Urology® (JU), Urology Practice® (UPJ), JU Open Plus (JUOP) and AUANews. AUA’s editorial board reviews the Update Series.
Finally, Regala said Office of Research reviews are more unique because of the level of expertise required to review more advanced grant award applications and the time required to review these lengthy submission packages. Reviewers must also be tailored to each individual application in terms of topic, specialty, and mechanism, which include Medical Student Fellowships, Research Scholar Awards, Residency Research Awards, Rising Star Awards, and Boston Scientific Medical Student Innovation Fellowships.
“We need to leverage fellows in urology specialty societies and work closely with fellowship directors and residents,” Regala said. “Ultimately, our workgroup members are united in sharing resources, our own unique understandings of our reviewer pools and our commitment to improve and reinvigorate our approach to volunteer peer reviewers at the AUA.”
For urologists concerned about training, Regala said the Annual Meeting team provides mentorship and introductory trainings. The publications team supports peer review training courses at section and subspecialty meetings on a limited basis, offers an Early-Career Editor program on JU® that emphasizes effective reviewing and partners with the European Urology journals at the AUA and European Association of Urology annual meetings to provide training. The guidelines and research teams currently offer instructions after reviewers have been recruited to participate in a specific review.
“Our research shows that societies who offer formal training programs are more effective at making the most of their peer review resources,” Regala said. “It’s our hope that this year’s Reviewer Rodeo will be the first of many opportunities to engage with our members to highlight the many reviewer opportunities available to support our educational programs.”
