How can I make a role that has Journal editor permission without the ability to edit metadata?

How can I create a custom Role that has the ability to view all of the submissions but can’t edit metadata on OJS 3.2?

We need an “audit” role that can login and view all of the submissions, without being assigned, and be able to view all the information on all of the stages but don’t be able to edit metadata.

Hi @joseagaleanoc,

This might vary a bit based on the version of OJS you’re using, but, you can check out our documentation here on roles (for version 3.2 - but you could switch to the relevant version for you): Users and Roles

In the future, please indicate your OJS version in your post, as it is important in helping to identify potential solutions to your questions.

I don’t know that you can prevent editing metadata as part of this process though …

What you could do is create a new role, call it “Auditor” and experiment by selecting different stages that the role would have access to, and see if there’s a mix of selected roles that meet your needs.

Roger
PKP Staff

Yes, sorry about not posting the OJS version, it’s 3.2.

I have made multiple attempts but the Permission Level of the Role if set to Journal Manager has the button to edit metadata checked and disabled, I even tried in the DB to changed the value of ‘permit_metadata_edit’ for the created Role in the ‘user_groups’ table but it doesn’t apply.

I have made multiple attempts with multiple roles of the systems and new ones but couldn’t, if there’s something else I might be missing it could be greatly appreciate it.

Hi @joseagaleanoc,

Hmmm… apart from customizing the code (and I’m not sure how you would do that to achieve this result), I can’t really think of a way of doing this in OJS. The capacity to edit metadata exists across several parts of the workflow, so it might be difficult to limit it. Perhaps someone else on the forum with a similar use case will find their way to this post.

-Roger
PKP Team

@joseagaleanoc:

I just talked this over with one of my developer colleagues, who provided a more fulsome explanation:

“The ability to access submissions without needing assignment is the Editor’s purview; they also are allowed to edit metadata for all submissions. So no, what they’re looking for (access to all submissions but inability to edit metadata) isn’t currently possible.
However, if they create a single “assistant” user group and add a single user to it, then every submission will be assigned to that user in the new role automatically when the submission comes in. As soon as you have a second user in the role, this will no longer happen, as OJS assumes you’ll want to choose your assignees manually.)”

-Roger
PKP Team