Author access to a declined/archived submission? How?

[janer]

Hello,

I am completely puzzled by how the following situation has come about, and would welcome some thoughts please.

Last November a paper was declined and archived. The authors were advised that it was unsuitable, but if they wanted to follow the suggestions of the reviewers (which were very extensive, requiring a complete reframing of the perspective of the research) then they could put in a new submission at some future date. I was therefore surprised to say the least to receive, from the relevant Editor, today, a forwarded email from the author, saying they had uploaded a revised paper last week and asking what was happening to it.

I checked the paper in the Archives, and sure enough there are the new uploads in the Author Version at the bottom of the Review page. Then I logged in as the Author, via the Journal Manager role, and there are no active submissions at all on the Author's Home Page - so how did he have access to the archived paper to do this? He is unpublished with us hitherto, so is not found in any of the Search functions on the Home Page either.

Hoping that you can help, and that this isn't a case of the website being 'hacked'!

All the best,

Janer

[ramon]

Hello Janer,

If I'm not mistaken, in previous version of OJS article data could be modified at any time, by any user with access to the article (author and editors), except for reviewers.
So, if the author, misguided or intentionally, modifies a published article, some mess could come up, although most of what could be modified is the article metadata.
The published article itself can only be modified by the Editorial team.

I'm not sure if anything has changed at all with OJS in this regard after 2.3.3.

Archived papers tend to be kept for later publication, if their subject ever becomes of interest.
Rejected papers are also a good starting point to check for plagiarism or author attempts to publish the same paper with small modifications.
When checking for this types of submissions in the archive, you'll make sure not to send it to review again unless the article is actually valid.

I would recommend defining an "Article Archival Policy", where archived and rejected papers are deleted systematically.
Another recommendation would be to change the owner of the article, setting the editor (with author role) as the author of archived and rejected submissions (by adding another author, defining that author as primary contact, then removing the previous author(s)). This way, only editors with author roles can modify archived and rejected papers.

If the article is in the archives, it will never be active, unless it is brought back to the review, editing or published queues.
Changing metadata or article files (submission, review or supplementary files) will not change its status.

[janer]

Dear Ramon,

All the points you make are fine for a paper or papers that are not archived, but I always archive papers that are declined by the Editors. As my original email makes clear, I logged in as the author, via the Journal Manager role, as soon as I realised what had happened, and sure enough, his User Home page said that there were no Active Submissions, which is a double-check that the paper was archived surely? So, how had he got access to his paper in our archives, in order to access the Review page and upload a revised version? I do hope you can help with this!

All the best,

Janer

[ramon]

Hello Janer,

The submission being archived doesn't mean the author doesn't have access to it, if still the owner of the submission.
This is record keeping, so that the author can see his past submissions and possibly make corrections and update any problems.
For example, some new information arose from recent data, but the journal doesn't require a new submission.
Instead, the article is updated, to include this new information (maybe from reader comments, etc).

This also helps the author and editor in certain situations. Taking your situation, for example, the author would communicate the editor that he has updated an archived and rejected paper through the Notiy Editor message. Then, as an Editor, you set a new Editorial decision (try "Resubmit for review" or something like that), and return the submission to the Review queue, assign new reviewers (or the same ones) and open a new round of review.

If you don't want the remove author access to archived submisions you have to change the article authors.
What I would do for archived and unpublished articles:

1. Add the Editor responsible for it.
2. Make sure you keep record of the real author in case you need it (use the abstract, your bio statement field in the submission or supplementary file, that is up to you)
3. Remove the author('s) from the submission.

Test this first or any other alternative method to see how it works fo you.

[janer]

Hello,

I'm sorry if I am being really dense here, but I still do not understand how an author was able to access a paper that had been archived, in order to upload yet another revised submission on its review page.

Once a paper is archived, then it disappears from the author's User Home page, where there is no link as far as I can see to archived submissions!

If there is another route of access, please could you explain it to me?

Many thanks

Janer