OJS3 - Automatic messages at copy-editing and proofreading stages

Software Support
1

Hi
I am testing OJS3 and I have noticed that you have less pre-prepared emails. In particular, at the copy-editing and proofreading stages in OJS2 there used to be pre-prepared emails for authors (and by authors) (“Copy-edited Review Request” for example) and I found them quite useful, as they speed up the process, expecially if you are managing more instances at the same time. In OJS3 I see there are “discussion” but it looks like one has to start a new message from scratch every time. Is it still possible to implement these pre-prepared mails and how so?
Thank you
Best regards
Valeria

2

Hi @valeria,

Have you tried the “Notify” link, available from the “Participants” sidebar by opening a list of actions for a particular participant? That’ll permit you to choose an email template. Permitting more control over prefab templates is something we’ll be working on in future releases.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

3

Hi @asmecher, yes I have tried that too. If I understand correctly though, one would have to create an ad hoc mail template and link it to this particular action, is that right? How would you suggest that we do that?
Also in OJS 2 the author would have access to the copy-edited version in the system via a link while in OJS3 he can only see the discussion and the files that are attached in the discussion, is that correct? In this case, even if one used the notification from the “particpants” side bar, you would still have to attach a file to your message.
Thank you
Best regards
Valeria

4

Hi @valeria,

The “Notify” tool has a drop-down list of available prefab templates, which is currently fixed, but we’ll likely be revisiting that in future releases to provide greater flexibility (and clarity around e.g. what variables can be used in the templates).

We replaced the fixed OJS 2.x 3-stage copyediting process with the much more general and flexible discussions tool, and at the same time we replaced the concept of a single submission file with the concept of a set of files from which subsets can be chosen for any particular need (e.g. review). That means that yes, for now you’ll need to attach files to discussions to permit the Author to access them. If that feels cumbersome then perhaps we can work a little on the UI/UX aspects of attaching – in other areas of the workflow we present a list with checkboxes, which might be worth considering here.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team