[Review options] How to activate the reviewer reminders when reviewer has not responded to a review request and when reviewer has not submitted a recommendation after review's due date

Software Support
1

Hello

I would like to activate the reviewer reminders as below:

  1. If reviewer has not responded to a review request within _ days.
  2. If reviewer has not submitted a recommendation within _ days after review’s due date.

“To activate these options, the site administrator must enable the scheduled_tasks option in the OJS configuration file.” However, I couldn’t find the location of the OJS configuration. I like to have a generated email that automatically send to the reviewers if they are not giving responses within the given time. Please someone help me regarding this matter? Thank you very much.

2

Hi @fay,

Your configuration file is called config.inc.php, and it’s in the same directory you installed OJS into.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

1 Like
3

Alright. You help me a lot. I think my problem is solved. Thank you.

4

Dear Alec,
can you please tell me how the emails are triggered, i.e. is it a cron or how are the reminder emails are going to be send?
And is there a way to test this functionality properly because I have the feeling that this is not working on our system …
Best wishes,
Stefanie

5

Hi @heidelberg,

It used to be necessary to set up cron (see config.inc.php and docs/README for information on this). In recent releases there is also a plugin called “acron” that can handle scheduled tasks in cases where you don’t have cron configured.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

6

Thanks, Alec. This means that when using the acron plugin that it has to be enabled for each journal individually. But this plugin is enabled by default, isn’t it?

7

Hi @heidelberg,

Yes, correct on both counts.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

8

Thanks for the information Alec!

9

I am trying to activate reviewer reminders. I can’t find “config.inc.php”. Where is the directory? Is this under “files browser”?

JCACS Editor

10

Hi @JCACS_Editors,

It’s in the directory you installed OJS in. You’d usually use something like CPanel’s file manager in order to manage this file – you wouldn’t manage it with the OJS software itself.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

11

I didn’t install OJS for our journal. We have inherited the editorship. All we have is access to the journal website with our “administrator”, “journal manager”, “editor” privileges etc. Is this something that has to be done by and where it was installed – another university? By the way, I know very little about software programming. When I try to change the automated message to reviewers I get this message:

To activate these options, the site administrator must enable the scheduled_tasks option in the OJS configuration file. Additional server configuration may be required to support this functionality (which may not be possible on all servers), as indicated in the OJS documentation.

JCACS Editor

12

Hi @JCACS_Editors,

Changes to config.inc.php will need to be made by someone who has access to the server. You won’t just have to enable that option in config.inc.php – you’ll also need to set up a server-side tool that’ll invoke a special script in OJS that’s intended for processing automated tasks. See e.g. the README documentation: ojs/README at ojs-stable-3_0_2 · pkp/ojs · GitHub

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team