I have recently had a case where authors who have previously published in our journal have uploaded files that were intended as revisions to a new submission instead in the submission of the archived/published article. Apparently they have access to the Review tab of published submissions and also the right to upload files there. I have checked this by logging in as the author and accessing their dashboard.
There must be a bug or something that would allow authors to upload files to a closed submission. This applies to all submissions where a review stage was initiated, both published and rejected articles.
Another thing I noticed during my investigation is that in their dashboards authors don’t have access to the copyediting and publication tabs of published articles in the archive. It says “stage not initiated”, even though these steps are visible for the journal and production manager.
We are currently using OJS 3.3.0.11.
Thank you for looking into these access and permission issues.
Best regards,
Sandra
Hi @gosandra,
What you’re seeing suggests to me that you might have permissions set to allow the author role access to these stages. You can see how to set these here: https://docs.pkp.sfu.ca/learning-ojs/en/users-and-roles#permissions-and-roles
Can you check to see if this is the case?
-Roger
PKP Team
Hi Roger,
thanks for looking into this.
I guess authors must have access to the different stages, and our setting is as recommended in the guidance. What I’m wondering is why they can still modify archived submissions at the review stage, which is the only one where they are really allowed to upload revisions. To me it seems more an issue of distinguishing active and archived submissions.
Best regards,
Sandra
Hi @gosandra,
Hmmm… I wonder if it was the case that the Permissions option (the checkbox that reads “Allow this person to make changes…” when first assigning the author as a participant?
Are you able to check this on one of the submissions where this is occurring? And, perhaps try revoking the permission, then logging in as the author and seeing if this makes a difference.
Another thought occurred to me, is if the author who is modifying the submission, possibly has other roles assigned to them (like editor, section editor, or manager) - that would give them elevated permissions, allowing them access to the submission.
-Roger
PKP Team
Dear Roger,
thanks for helping me troubleshoot.
I have checked your suggestions, without solution:
- the author of the submission where I noticed it lately is also registered as reviewer, but revoking this permission doesn’t change his ability to upload a file to an archived submission in the review panel.
- when logging in as the author I only get to the review stage, not the copyediting and production stage of the published, archived article. This is strange, as it is the only archived submission where I see the production stages blocked. Perhaps because the author uploaded a new file to the review process? I tested it with another archived submission, but that doesnt affect it.
- while testing this with other archived submissions, I was able to upload new documents to the review panel to all of them when signed in as author.
- the author role itself does not have permission to edit submission metadata
- Finally, I checked whether additional permissions affect this and looked at a published paper submitted by one of our editors. I saw the same pattern for all tested archived submissions.
below is a screenshot of the archived submission when logged in as author, with the button that should be disactivated in archived submissions highlighted.
Best regards,
Sandra
Hi @gosandra,
Sorry - but I wasn’t able to replicate your error, and I shared with another of my colleagues who also reported that they weren’t able to replicate it and reported this:
… tested this in 3.3 and can confirm that as an author, I CAN upload a file in the Review stage of a published article, but only when my author role has a flag permitting metadata/publication changes (either journal-wide in role setting or at a submission level for author participant).
Without the flag, I can see the upload option and go as far as adding a file and only then do I get “this role does not have access” pop up
I’m not sure what else to tell suggest at this point. Other community members may be able to weigh in if they have other ideas.
-Roger
PKP Team
Dear Roger,
Thanks for checking with your team. I have doublechecked and in our case the authors never have permission to edit metadata after submission. Also it seems that one can edit permissions for an assignment to allow editing the publication but I have never done that.
So it seems there may be a workaround in the code, that would allow uploading a file without checking for permission.
I could ask my IT person to have a look, but you are the ones with better knowledge of the code, so if you could provide some guidance of where we should look in our installation, I would be most grateful.
Thanks
Sandra
