2. Reviewing an Article (Editor)

2.1 Unassigned Article

Once an Author has submitted an article it is the Editor's turn to review the unassigned article, assign an Editor and move it into the review process. An Editor will be notified once an article is submitted, the email will contain a link, or the Editor can access the article from the Dashboard page.


Selecting Unassigned will provide the Editor with a list of articles that haven't yet been assigned an Editor and moved into review. You can view the data for an article by selecting "View". On the left hand of the page all of the article's metadata will be listed, on the right, its options and actions.

The first thing an Editor needs to do is assign an Editor or Section Editor to the handle the article through the journal workflow. Once assigned, the Editor can then do one of the following:

1. Move the article to review
2. Reject the article outright
3. Accept the article outright

Rejecting will allow you to tell the author why, Accepting will move it into Copyediting and Moving to Review will move the article into the Review workflow.

If you move the article into review and are the author of an article you will be blocked by a permission denied page.


If you opt to over-ride the security warning, all other Editors will be notified of this.

2.2 Review Page

The review page presets various actions:

1. Add Files
2. Delete Round
3. Add Reviewer
4. New Review Round
5. Request Revisions

2.2.1 Add Files

The Add Files options allows you to list which files will be listed for the reviewers in the current review round. All reviewers for a given round will see the same files.

2.2.2 Delete Round

This is an end all button, it will remove the files and reviewers from the current round. You will be given a prompt that explains what will be deleted if you agree, NB. there is no way to recover a review assignment once it is deleted so only use this option if you really want to remove it, better to add a new round which will close all open review assignments.

2.2.3 Add Reviewer

When adding a reviewer you have two options, you can select a reviewer and go through the process of setting up their review (Type, visibility, form and due date) or, if you've setup the required defaults, you can "Assign with Defaults". This will use the default type, visibility, form and due date for your journal and send an automated email to the reviewer (the former allows you to edit the email).

Assuming you choose to select the options yourself, when you press "Add Reviewer" you will be taken to the "Notify" page where you can edit the outgoing email to the user. There is an option available to skip sending this email if you wish.

Once the reviewer is assigned they will be able to access the system and let you know if they will complete the review and, if yes, access the review form you specified.


2.2.4 New Review Round

This option simply adds a new review round, a clean slate of review! Any open review assignments on the current round are withdrawn and a new round is set up. This process is often done after round 1 is complete and the author has also completed some form of revisions.

You will still be able to see Round 1 via a tab at the top of the page.

2.2.5 Request Revisions

Requesting revisions will allow you to ask the Author to make changes to the manuscript, this may be for editorial reasons or as the result of a round of peer review. Usually the process would be:

1. Review Round 1
2. Reviewer 1
3. Reviewer 2
4. Accept/Decline/Revisions based on reviewer feedback
5. Request Revisions
6. Review Round 2
7. Reviewer 3
8. Reviewer 4
9. Action based on reviewer feedback

2.3 Managing a Review

Once you have added a review to your round, it will be listed on the review page.The initial stage of any review is "Awaiting acknowledgement" which means we are waiting on the reviewer accepting or declining to undertake the review. At this stage we can:

1. View the review, though it doesn't tell us much
2. Withdraw the review
3. Delete the review
4. If the review is withdrawn or declined by the reviewer we can use a new option Reset to set it back to Awaiting Acknowledgement