Modifations to Registration Process

[feliciasullivan]

We would like to modify the "reviewer" options presented during registration.

When registering the person must indicate if they are registering for various functions, including reviewer. When a person registers as a reviewer we want them to let us know the section of the journal they want to review and their expertise.

Currently the user is presented

"Reviewer: Willing to conduct peer review of submissions to the journal. Identify reviewing interests (substantive areas and research methods)."

Here's what we would like:

Reviewer: Willing to conduct peer review of submissions to the journal. Identify reviewing interests and journal sections of interest to you:

Journal Sections:
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
etc . ..

Reviewing Interests:
OOption 1
Option 2
Option 3
etc . ..

we'd like the options to be checkboxes that could be pulled into the reviewers profile. Is it possible to make these modifications? If so, what file(s) do I need to work on to make this happen?

Thanks for your help.

- Felicia

[mcrider]

Hi Felicia,

It would be fairly complex to implement this, as the changes not only have to be reflected in the registration form, but also in the profile viewing code and profile editing code (and really anywhere in the system that uses the $user->getInterests() or setInterests() function). Plus, you'll have to be comfortable working with PHP and Smarty templates, and finally these changes will likely make upgrading rather difficult. But, I'll give a quick rundown of some of the files you'll have to work with and I hope it helps!

For registration, the relevant files are templates/user/register.tpl (which displays the registration form), and classes/user/form/RegistrationForm.inc.php (which tells the registration template to be displayed and assigns data to it, i.e. this is where you would use $templateMgr->assign() to send your journal sections and reviewing interests to the template, which you then would iterate through in the template). When the form is submitted, the function registerUser() in pages/user/RegistrationHandler.inc.php receives the data. Here you would have to parse the review interests form data, which will likely be some sort of array, and convert it to a string so the $user->setInterests() function can handle it. You'll then have to edit the profile display and editing code (classes/user/form/ProfileForm.inc.php and templates/user/profile.tpl) to accommodate these changes to registration.

I'll leave it at here for now, to see if you'll have the resources to handle all these modifications and if you have any specific questions.

Cheers,
matt

[feliciasullivan]

Thanks Matt. As I feared these modifications may be beyond our current skill resources. I'll see if there might be some additional help we can secure. Appreciate your response.

- Felicia

[mga]

How can you prevent this checkbox from appearing at all? We don't want the "average Joe" registering as a reviewer.

[jmacgreg]

Hi mga,

See Journal Setup Step 4.1: Access and Security; there's an option to en/disable what users can register as.

Cheers,
James

[mga]

Oh I just noticed this is an OJS post. I get mixed up with OCS and OJS questions. I want to know how to do this in OCS. Is it possible?

[jmacgreg]

Hi mga,

It's a little different in OCS: If you go to Conference Management -> Conference Timeline and Information, you'll see a section on opening and closing reviewer registration. Just set the close date to a date in the past (or the open date to a date in the future, I suppose), and users won't be able to register as reviewers.

Cheers,
James