Customised Review Process

[ianm]

We are trying to implement the review process detailed below. It is similar, but annoyingly different, to the standard e-mail attachment review process.

After a reviewer has been chosen:

1) E-mail is sent to reviewer with abstract, but not the full paper, asking if they can review within review period and to let Section Editor know within a few days. Would be nice to have different review periods and different e-mail templates for different types of papers, e.g. communications v. long papers.
2) Reviewer acknowledges by e-mail
3) Section Editor sends second e-mail to reviewer thanking them for agreeing to do review and attaches full paper.
4) Reviewer either logs on to system to enter review or sends by email to Section Editor.
5) Second and subsequent rounds should start at 3) with revised paper and different e-mail template.

Can you give any advice as to how to customise OJS to achieve this? I think it needs:

Change to generated first e-mail to reviewer to remove attached paper (I know this can be deleted manually, but some people will forget)
Ability to have different review periods and different e-mail templates for different types of papers
Change to second e-mail to reviewer to include paper as an attachment automatically: essentially exactly what happens currently with the first e-mail. Would also be nice to continue the use of different review periods and e-mail templates for different types of paper

Any pointers/suggestions to help achieve this would be most welcome.

[asmecher]

Hi Ian,

OJS supports a number of review configurations, but nothing quite what you suggest. The closest contenders are:

• Email-based review process. However, this doesn't have the option of forcing the reviewer to agree to the review before providing the paper.
• Standard web-based review process, where the reviewer has to agree to reviewing first.

If it's absolutely necessary that the Reviewer be able to complete the entire process via email, the first option is clearly the closest match, and your assessment of the required changes is a good start. However, I'd suggest that you consider the second approach, particularly with a couple of configuration tweaks that don't require modifying the code:

• Reviewers must agree to review the submission before getting access to the file.
• One-click reviewer access. This allows Reviewers to access the submission's Review page using a specially-constructed URL, without having to require them to log in with a username and password they've inevitably forgotten (which may be the reason you'd prefer to use an email-based process).

Let me know what you think of the above options, and I can provide more specific details on modification.

Keep in mind that it's generally possible for a Reviewer to fall back on an email-based process, even if email-based reviews aren't being used. In this case, the Editor can enter the reviewer's feedback on the "Editor To Enter" line of the submission's Review section.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Open Journal Systems Team
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[ianm]

Dear Alex

Thanks for that advice; I will discuss it with the Editors and come back for further help!

Ian