Ask for number of authors, display appropriate number of display fields?

Hi, we often have authors only mention one author for multiply-authored submissions, despite instructions to the contrary. So I’d like to change the setup of Step 3 “Entering the Submission’s Metadata”:

Is there a way where we can first prompt the author for how many authors are on the paper, and then have the system display the appropriate number of entry boxes for that number of authors?

This would also have the advantage that the users wouldn’t have to click “Add author” multiple times.

(Right now, the step 3 template displays text boxes for one author, with an “Add Author” button, which seems to cause users to assume they only need to enter their own info, despite our instructions to the contrary.)

Hi @pkpForTaclSupport,

What version of OJS are you using? (Please include this in your posts.)

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

Sorry, I meant to include the version number and then forgot after the third paragraph or something! 2.4.5.0.

Hi @pkpForTaclSupport,

For OJS 2.x, the authors list is initialized in classes/author/form/submit/AuthorSubmitStep3Form.inc.php in the initData function. If you wanted to initialize the list with empty entries, you’d need to edit that function, in addition to adding the “number of authors” field to the previous form.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team