Problem with some reviewers (who are also editors)

[justingonder]

Apologies if this topic has been discussed elsewhere; it was very difficult to come up with search terms for this topic that didn't result in thousands of threads. I'd be thrilled if others could point me toward other, related discussions.

Here's an issue that's become increasingly recurrent for our journal users:

In some cases, an editor may assign a reviewer to an article, but that reviewer may also happen to be a fellow editor (for instance, maybe the reviewer was a guest editor for a previous issue). This creates a significant security / anonymity problem because, as an editor, that reviewer also has full access to the submission's details.

I can imagine a couple of solutions to this problem:

1) Warnings: If, when enrolling a new reviewer *or* when assigning a reviewer to an article, the system detects that the reviewer is also enrolled as an editor, a warning dialogue informs the user that this reviewer is also an editor, and will have access to the full submission details. The dialogue should also provide a link to instructions for managing user permissions, in case the editor wants to un-enroll that person as an editor

2) Block-out: The system does not allow an editor to see any submission for which they are also assigned as a reviewer (This seems more invasive, and would be a problematic solution for users who really want someone to have dual enrollment / access).

-justin gonder
eScholarship Operations Coordinator
California Digital Library
510.987.9869
help@escholarship.org