Encouraging authors to recommend reviewers

[msaghaei]

Hi All

To encourage the authors of a paper to recommend some reviewer, I find it usefull to add some code as follow. This adds a link in the review page of the article, and clicking it will open a prepared email to send to the authors. Following are the steps to do this:

I. Create a new Email template as Journal manager:
following is a sample:

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Email Key: REVIEWER_RECOMMEND
Subject: Reviewers Recommendation
Body:

Dear {$authorName}:

To speed the process of your manuscript, "{$articleTitle}," and to enhance the quality of published paper, you can recommend us some international reviewers to review your paper. As a potential guideline you can find good reviewers from among the references of your article. Please send the following information for each recommended reviewer by email to me.

First name
Middle name
Last name

Affiliatin

E.mail

Please consider that none of the recommended reviewers should be in the same institution as yourself or have been co-authors with any of the authors of your manuscript within the past five years. In addition please note that your recommendation will be considered by the editor, and there is no obligation for him/her to assign the recommended reviewers.

{$editorialContactSignature}


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II. Add the following function to the file classes/submission/sectionEditor/SectionEditorAction.inc.php

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   /**
    * Requests from the authors reviewers recommendation.
    * @param $sectionEditorSubmission object
    * @return boolean true if ready for redirect
    */
   function requestReviewersRecommend($sectionEditorSubmission, $send = false) {
      $sectionEditorSubmissionDao = &DAORegistry::getDAO('SectionEditorSubmissionDAO');
      $userDao = &DAORegistry::getDAO('UserDAO');
      
      $journal = &Request::getJournal();
      $user = &Request::getUser();
      
      import('mail.ArticleMailTemplate');
      $email = &new ArticleMailTemplate($sectionEditorSubmission, 'REVIEWER_RECOMMEND');

      $author = &$userDao->getUser($sectionEditorSubmission->getUserId());
      if (!isset($author)) return true;

      if ($send && !$email->hasErrors()) {
         HookRegistry::call('SectionEditorAction::requestReviewersRecommend', array(&$sectionEditorSubmission, &$author, &$email));
         $email->send();
         
      } else {
         if (!Request::getUserVar('continued')) {
            $email->addRecipient($author->getEmail(), $author->getFullName());
            $paramArray = array(
               'authorName' => $author->getFullName(),
               'editorialContactSignature' => $user->getContactSignature(),
            );
            $email->assignParams($paramArray);
         }
         $email->displayEditForm(Request::url(null, null, 'requestReviewersRecommend'), array('articleId' => $sectionEditorSubmission->getArticleId()));
      }
      return true;
   }


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III. Add the following function to the file pages/sectionEditor/SubmissionEditHandler.inc.php

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   function requestReviewersRecommend($args = array()) {
      $articleId = Request::getUserVar('articleId');
      list($journal, $submission) = SubmissionEditHandler::validate($articleId, SECTION_EDITOR_ACCESS_REVIEW);

      $send = Request::getUserVar('send')?true:false;
      parent::setupTemplate(true, $articleId, 'editing');

      if (SectionEditorAction::requestReviewersRecommend($submission, $send)) {
         Request::redirect(null, null, 'submissionReview', $articleId);
      }
   }


=================================
IV. Add the following function to the file

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pages/sectionEditor/SectionEditorHandler.inc.php
   function requestReviewersRecommend($args) {
      import('pages.sectionEditor.SubmissionEditHandler');
      SubmissionEditHandler::requestReviewersRecommend($args);
   }


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V. In the file locale/en_US/locale.xml after <message key="submission.peerReview">Peer&amp;nbsp;Review</message> add the following message (and to other translations too)

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<message key="submission.reqReviewRecommend">Encourage authors to recommend reviewers</message>


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VI. In the file templates/sectionEditor/submission/peerReview.tpl
After

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<a name="peerReview"></a>

Add

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{url|assign:"urlrec" op="requestReviewersRecommend" articleId=$submission->getArticleId()}


And after

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<table class="data" width="100%">
   <tr valign="middle">
      <td width="22%"><h3>{translate key="submission.peerReview"}</h3></td>
      <td width="14%"><h4>{translate key="submission.round" round=$round}</h4></td>
      <td width="64%" class="nowrap">
         <a href="{url op="selectReviewer" path=$submission->getArticleId()}" class="action">{translate key="editor.article.selectReviewer"}</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
         <a href="{url op="submissionRegrets" path=$submission->getArticleId()}" class="action">{translate|escape key="sectionEditor.regrets.link"}</a>
      </td>
   </tr>


Add

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   <tr>
      <td>{translate key="submission.reqReviewRecommend"}</td>
      <td>{icon name="mail" url=$urlrec}</td>
   </tr>


Further modification is neccessary to register the date of email send. Also it is possible to add some linke in the review page for the role of the author to recommend reviewers.

Regards,

Mahmoud Saghaei

[John]

Mahmoud
This is a good idea and one I have seen in place in some journals. I was thinking that the best place to add the request to the author would be in the Submission process, Step 2, which would enable the registration of the potential reviewers and to have their names come up automatically in the Review stage (though they could be "cleared" and others added), but the ability to easily modify the email and use it or not makes sense. It could be sent on the assigment of an editor to oversee the review process, so that the list of reviewers would be directed to the right editor.

What do you think of the Step 2 process versus the email request? Are you getting good compliance on the email request? Editors are happy enough to handle the entry of the reviewers I assume.

Thanks
John

[msaghaei]

John

The ideal place ofcourse is the step 2 submission (This should be clearly stated in the guide for authors and in the checklist). The only issue is wether to make it obligatory to fill the list of recommended reviewers (like biomedcentral) or the authors may pass through (even this may be configurable). But I think it may be useful to have the option continued after submission for both authors to recommend reviewers and for editors to send email requesting such recommendations.

Currently we use this option of sending request email to authors frequently. usually local authors do not like this (may be they are not sure about the quality of their works to be seen by their peers) but many others respond promptly.

Regards,
Mahmoud

[John]

Mahmoud
I'll add this to the list, and give some thought to the options editors can have with it.
Thanks again,
John