In OJS 2 authors were able to complete their submissions with additional files. Only the editor could change the main manuscript.
Now, with OJS 3, authors who submit cannot make any more changes to their submission.
As in other article submission systems, OJS should make it possible for the authors to complete/amend their submission when it is incomplete or has inconsistencies with house requirements. This is especially necessary for OJS because it does not flag problems as other submission systems do, and does not merge files for an author to see is his/her submission is correct or not.
As OJS 3 stands now, the editor has to do all the work and upload files for the author.
I’ll pick this topic because I have the same need.
I’d like to have a “return to author” option right after the article submission; this option would be available to the assigned editor, who is responsible for checking if the submission checks all the defined rules. If the submission has something missing, is the author job to correct it.
For the time being, I made this workaround (OJS 3.3.0.4):
In file /lib/pkp/classes/submission/action/EditorAction.inc.php I edited the lines after line 75:
// Set a new submission status if necessary
$submissionDao = DAORegistry::getDAO('SubmissionDAO'); /* @var $submissionDao SubmissionDAO */
if ($decision == SUBMISSION_EDITOR_DECISION_DECLINE || $decision == SUBMISSION_EDITOR_DECISION_INITIAL_DECLINE) {
$submission->setStatus(STATUS_QUEUED);
$submission->setSubmissionProgress(4);
$submissionDao->updateObject($submission);
} elseif ($submission->getStatus() == STATUS_DECLINED) {
$submission->setStatus(STATUS_QUEUED);
$submissionDao->updateObject($submission);
}
This makes the “Decline” button a “Back to Draft” button, setting the submission as “Incomplete” and in step 4.
This accomplishes what we want for now, but I’ll try to make a 4th button in the editor role (after “Decline”) that executes the “Back to Draft” action.
I’d like to ask someone on the PKP team what are the implications of this workaround that I made.
That’s neat. I would like a ‘return to author’ feature as well. It happens reasonably frequently that we can have an author who puts together a manuscript that needs some easy and quick changes before it’s good to go for peer review. Being able to return to author and email them the results of the initial quality check would be nice. I have been using the workarounds of either uploading the files manually or asking them to make a new submission (annoying).
I’ll try to get the 4th button running and I’ll post it there if I can get it done.
Let me ask you something, sorry for my ignorance… I edited the EditorAction.inc.php, which is a “core” file. Is there a way of overriding that file by a theme edition? If it was possible, I would make the changes in our child theme, avoiding to make the change in the file after an OJS update.