Which option is best feasable to integrate a new phase in the editorial workflow of OJS 3.5.x with our plugin ojs-codecheck

dxL1nus
Thu, 23 Oct 2025 18:49:50 +0000
Software Support

Hey, I am a developer of the ojs-codecheck plugin, which aims to provide functions to help with integrating CODECHECK code reproducibility checks into the publishing workflow of scholarly submissions within OJS 3.5.x seamlessly.

A CODECHECK means that a codechecker executes a workflow once and then writes a report called: the CODECHECK certificate. This check is generally independent from the peer review and may happen before being sent to review, in parallel, or even after (post review or post publication), depending on the journal’s policies.

To make integrating the CODECHECK process easier into the editorial workflow within OJS 3.5.x, we thought of introducing a separate phase for a CODECHECK that is very similar, but also independent from a review (peer review of an article). Is it possible to expand OJS 3.5.x in a way that allows this?

Alternatively, we consider adding a “type” to a Reviewer so that we can manage codecheckers as a special type of reviewers, but they would appear in the same lists and be added through the same forms. Is that extension feasible?

Thank you for helping us to avoid a bad design decision early in our development!

To better show you what we intend to create with our plugin, we created some mock-ups to visualize our desired goal for how the editorial workflow would look like with our plugin ojs-codecheck installed and acitvated.

We have an idea for our plugin, to run CODECHECKs in parallel to the peer review. Therefore we thought of a separate “Send to CODECHECK” button next to the “Send for Review” button. The question is: Is that kind of Sub-Process within the editorial workflow feasible, or is it too complex to manage? Is it easier that an article that is codechecked means that the article already is in peer review?

Alternatively we thought about codechecking as a separate Round. Here the main question that arises is, whether it is possible to expand the peer review process in such a way. The following three mock-ups visualize how the peer review process could look like with the ojs-codecheck plugin enabled and with using this aproach of combining review and CODECHECK.

Review Tab in Dashboard:

Task view:

Review Tab in Editorial Workflow:

We also thought about how the codecheckers could be registered for a CODECHECK process. Two ideas came to mind. First up registering the codecheckers through the same form as the other peer reviewers. This would mean that we need to differentiate the codecheckers from peer reviewers both visually and in code. This would look something like the following mock-up.

One main aspect that speaks against such an implementation though, is that Review can have multiple rounds and to each round Reviewers are assigned separately. That would be a problem, since a CODECHECK only has one round and the assigned codecheckers don’t change with different review rounds. Therefore we thought of a second solution, where we split the assign forms for both Reviewers and Codecheckers.

As is noticeable for these two options though is that the Review Round UI would be used and modified to fit out custom CODECHECK metadata fields. As is visible though in the other mock-ups, there are quite a lot of metadata fields for a CODECHECK. Combined with the normal Review Fields, this form would get pretty big. That’s why our preference is to have a completely separate stage for the CODECHECK from the Review. Therefore we want to ask if it is possible to expand the Editorial Workflow of OJS 3.5.x in such a way to achieve this.

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