<p>Earth System Science Data (ESSD) is an open-access journal for the publication of interdisciplinary datasets and lends itself well for student peer-review exercises. We discuss in this editorial the experience with ESSD manuscripts of (1) a research group providing a peer-review report to authors; (2) an author receiving a peer-review report from a team of students; and (3) a student participating in a peer-review report. We seek to promote ESSD as a valuable open-source journal for educational purposes, serving as a training set for students with benefits to the students, the authors and the editor.</p>