The ‘Sub-editor model’: integrating apprenticeship into editorial decision-making for acquiring scholarly communication skills

This practice article describes a work-integrated learning initiative at the Lethbridge Journal Incubator (JI) that embeds graduate students in editorial decision-making as a method of active, hands-on, disciplinary professionalization, in the context of standard scholarly decision-making. Over the past decade, the JI has shifted from minimal student participation – where students performed only back-office and line-by-line editing tasks – to a recursive training model where students are asked to assist editors by preparing detailed assessments of submissions in response to real-time feedback from referees and editors. This model not only enhances academic writing and critical thinking but also requires graduate students to engage directly with the standards of the field by comparing their assessments with those of established editors and referees, modeling editorial judgments (which are then confirmed or modified by established academics) and evaluating revisions against referee reports and decision letters. In doing so, it highlights editorial engagement as a critical tool for preparing career-ready scholars in an increasingly open and interdisciplinary research environment. The result is a versatile operational model that aligns training with scholarly production in a way that is mutually beneficial to students, journals and the wider academic community.