I have a list of 200+ reviewers who have reviewed for our journal before its migration to OJS and I would like to import those people as reviewers into OJS (version 2.4.5). The list is a MS Excel file which I am able to convert to XML format of Users XML Plugin (or something else, if necessary). But … as those future users are automatically assigned also the Reviewer role, I would like to send them the notification e-mail based on REVIEWER_REGISTER template rather than the standard USER_REGISTER template. My impression is that this, unfortunately, cannot be handled by the Users XML Plugin.
Has anyone here tried something similar? Or are your editors enrolling the reviewers by hand?
The only thing that comes to my mind (short of writing a new plugin) is to
use the Users XML Plugin to enroll all 200+ users, but do not send them a notification e-mail with their username and password,
use the Journal Manager interface to send all users with Reviewer role an e-mail – but here I am afraid that using this interface I would not be able to expand e-mail template variables like {$username} and {$password} for the given user.
Generally emailing passwords out is frowned upon and we don’t facilitate it in many places in the system; another approach would be to turn on one-click reviewer access, in which case reviewers being asked to review a submission would be given a special one-time use URL in the request email. You wouldn’t need to notify them until a review request was ready, and then they’d get all the details they need without a password being sent by email.
Your other option would be simply to temporarily change the body of the USER_REGISTER template so that it contains the information you want, then reset it back to its previous text beforehand. That should permit you to be able to email out passwords if you think it’s important.
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
I fully agree with you that e-mailing passwords is a big no-no, but I am willing to risk it in this case… I would of course prefer an e-mail with a password reset link, but the response of OJS to password reset is e-mailing a password (at least in 2.4.5, maybe I misconfigured something), so the final effect is the same.
As I am reading over my original post, I realised that I forgot to mention one thing: The current (non-OJS) reviewing process does not collect information about reviewing interests and I would like to extend the REVIEWER_REGISTER e-mail with a plea to the reviewers to fill in that field in their profile – we simply do not have the manpower to do it manually for so many people. This would also serve us as an indicator of their willingness to make further reviews.
I have thought about your suggestion to temporary alter the USER_REGISTER template, and I would probably do it this way and hope that no external user will register at the same time …
Just to clarify a bit: The main purpose of this elaborate exercise is to help out our editor, who would then have the luxury of being suggested certain names based on the keywords of the submitted manuscript. We have currently more than 100 papers in the before-OJS queue waiting for review or being only partially reviewed (you can imagine how fast the editorial process is if you are doing everything manually and with only one editor to handle everything and not so many people responding to reviewing requests) so I am seeking all possibilities to speed the process up after I import the submissions into OJS.
I think using the Journal Manager’s “Prepared Emails” area to make tweaks to the email template, even if just for the sake of this import, is the best way. You could add the plea for users to enter their interests that way.
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team