Automatic Assignment of Editors at time of submission

This feature allows new and/or revised submissions to be automatically pushed to Editors, bypassing the ‘New Submissions Requiring Assignment’ folder or the ‘Revised Submissions Requiring Assignment’ folder. This feature is designed for journals that do not have a central journal office, and is optimized for journals that have groups of Editors that work independently, without a journal staff.

Note: This feature does not automatically ‘assign’ the submission to the Editor, but rather it pushes the submission to an Editor’s ‘Direct-to-Editor’ folder, which is only accessible by that Editor. From this folder the Editor can take on the assignment, or pass it along to a more appropriate Editor

1) The Author selects the Editor during the ‘Submit New Manuscript’ process, from the ‘Request Editor’ step. Depending on the journal’s configuration for this feature, the Editors can be listed by Name, by Role, by Description (see ‘Editor Description is a new People Record field’ in this document), or any combination of these three

2) The Author selects the Editor during the ‘Submit New Manuscript’ process, from the ‘Select Section/Category’ step. The journal must first associate each Editor with a Section/Category term in PolicyManager, under ‘Edit Section/Category’. Only one Editor can be associated with each Section/Category term, though multiple terms can be assigned to one Editor

3) Editors are automatically assigned based on who is next in line to receive a submission (rotation). This is done by selecting the participating Editors from a list in Policy Manager, under ‘Set Editor Rotation Participants’. The first submission is directed to the first Editor in the list. The next submission is directed to the next Editor, and so forth, until the entire rotation is used up, at which point it starts again from the beginning of the rotation

When an Author approves a submission (or revision), the submission does not appear in the folder ‘New Submissions Requiring Assignments’ or ‘Revised Submissions Requiring Assignment’ but rather it proceeds directly to a new Editor folder called ‘Direct-to-Editor New Submissions’ or ‘Direct-to-Editor Revised Submissions’.

Once an Editor has received a new submission in his ‘Direct-to-Editor New Submissions’ folder, the Editor will have the following Action links (some are dependent upon having appropriate RoleManager permission):

- ‘Edit Submission’ (which includes the ability to return the submission to the Author)

When an Author submits a revision, the revision will automatically return to the first-assigned Editor of the previous revision.

Once an Editor has received a revised submission in his ‘Direct-to-Editor Revised Submissions’ folder, the Editor will have the following Action links (some are dependent upon having RoleManager permission):

- ‘Edit Submission’ (which includes the ability to return the submission to the Author)

If an Editor wishes to take the assignment, then the Editor must first click on the ‘Assign to Myself’ link. If the Editor does not want to take on the assignment (because of conflict of interest, not within area of expertise, etc.) then the Editor clicks ‘Redirect to Other Editor’ and selects a different Editor from the list. If the Editor wants to be involved in the submission, but wants to assign it to a lower level Editor, then he must first click ‘Assign to Myself’, then from the ‘New Assignments’ folder click on ‘Assign Editor’.

Note: Using ‘Redirect to Other Editor’ will allow the Editor, who currently has the submission in his ‘Direct-to-Editor’ folder, to send the submission to a different Editor, thus removing himself from the ‘Editor Chain’ (the Editor Chain is the list of Editors responsible for making assignments and Decisions on a submission). This is different than ‘Assigning’ another Editor, which leaves the initial Editor in the Editor Chain

To Configure PolicyManage: There are three PolicyManager items associated with this feature: ‘Set Editor Assignment Options’, ‘Set Request Editor or Assign Editor Options’, and ‘Set Editor Rotation Participants’.

The ‘Set Editor Assignment Options’ page allows a journal to identify whether new submissions should go into the ‘New Submissions Requiring Assignment’ folder, or into an Editor’s ‘Direct-to-Editor’ folder.

For the ‘Set Editor Assignment Options’ page there are three top-level settings, one called ‘Submissions go to New Submissions Requiring Assignments folder’; one called ‘Assign to Editor by Rotation’; and one called ‘Revisions are automatically directed to the first-assigned Editor of the previous Revision’.

The first setting (‘Submissions go to New Submissions Requiring Assignments’ folder) has two lower-level settings that allow for exceptions to the rule that new submissions should go to the ‘New Submissions Requiring Assignments’ folder. These exceptions are: 1) Submissions where Author has selected an Editor, and 2) Submissions where Author has selected a Section/Category.

If either of these exceptions is selected, then submissions will move to the appropriate Editor’s ‘Direct-to-Editor’ folder when the Author selects an Editor or a Section/Category during the ‘Submit New Manuscript’ process.

Note: A submission will default to the ‘New Submissions Requiring Assignments’ folder if an automatic Editor Assignment is not available. If configured properly, all submissions should always go to the ‘Direct-to-Editor New Submissions’ folder. Unless:

1) The journal has not made the ‘Request Editor’ option mandatory and the Author does not select an Editor from the ‘Request Editor’ step of the ‘Submit New Manuscript’ interface

2) The journal has not made the ‘Select Section/Category’ option mandatory and the Author does not select a Section/Category from the ‘Select Section/Category’ step of the ‘Submit New Manuscript’ interface

3) The journal has not assigned all Section/Category terms to Editors, and the Author has selected one of these non-assigned Section/Category terms

Note: A journal may still ask or require an Author to 'Request an Editor' and/or 'Select Section/Category' without using the ‘Direct-to-Editor’ functionality. To do this, the journal should not enable either of the ‘exceptions’ described above. The Author will still have an opportunity to use the ‘Request an Editor’ function and/or Select Section/Category during the ‘Submit Manuscript’ process, but the submission will not be automatically sent to an Editor

The second setting, called ‘Assign to Editor by Rotation’, means that Editors will receive submissions in their ‘Direct-to-Editor’ folders in rotation, and no submissions will ever go to the ‘New Submissions Requiring Assignment’ folder. This setting relies on proper configuration of the PolicyManager item called, 'Set Editor Rotation Participants' (discussed below).

The third setting determines the behavior of Revisions when they are submitted. The setting is called ‘Revisions are automatically directed to the first-assigned Editor of the previous Revision’. If the checkbox is checked, a revision will be automatically assigned to the first-assigned Editor of the Previous Revision. Otherwise, the Revision will go to the ‘Revised Submissions Requiring Assignments’ folder.

Note: An Editor not configured to receive new submissions in a ‘Direct-to-Editor’ folder WILL receive them in her Editor’s ‘Direct-to-Editor Revised Submissions’ folder if this checkbox is checked. This means that all Revisions will ALWAYS go to the ‘Direct-to-Editor Revised Submissions’ folder, even for first-assigned Editors who do not get the initial submission delivered to them in the ‘Direct-to-Editor New Submissions’ folder. If a journal has a mix of Editors, some of whom receive new submissions in a ‘Direct-to-Editor’ folder and some of whom receive new submissions via the journal office assigning them, then the journal will have to expect that all Revisions are going to go directly to the first-assigned Editor, rather than through the journal office first

This is used to identify which Editors may be requested by Authors. You must decide which Editor Roles will appear in the list that Authors choose from. You must then determine how the enabled Editor Roles will be displayed on the ‘Request Editor Screen’. Editors can be listed by Name, by Role, by Description, or any combination of these three.

Note: If you would like to use this feature to designate an Editor in a geographic location, then you should include the geographic location in the Editor’s ‘Description’ (found in the Editor’s ‘People’ Record). For example, if you have an Editor in Europe and an Editor in the US, the ‘Description’ field for one could be ‘European Editor’, the other could be called ‘US Editor’

Note: A journal may use the ‘Request Editor’ feature independent of the ‘Direct-to-Editor’ functionality. The ‘Set Request Editor or Assign Editor Options’ item in PolicyManager is configured in the same way. It is the settings in the PolicyManager item ‘Set Editor Assignment Options’ that determines if a new submission goes directly to Editors

The page displays a list of all people with an Editor Role. You must select the Editors who will participate in the Editor Rotation by clicking on the checkbox next to their name. New submissions will go directly to the editor who has the earliest date for the most recent assignment.

To Configure RoleManager: Go to RoleManager, click on Editor Role, and click on ‘Edit’ next to each Editor role that needs to be configured. The RoleManager permission, ‘Receive Assignments in New Assignments Folder (Receive Assignments without Invitation)’, must be enabled in order for an Editor to receive submissions in the ‘Direct-to-Editor’ folder.

To ‘redirect’ a submission to a different Editor, the permission ‘Redirect to Other Editor (and be removed from Editor Chain)’ must be enabled. This is used by an Editor when the Editor does not want to take on the assignment (because of conflict of interest, not within area of expertise, etc.).

To Configure ActionManager: A new event is added for when submissions are ‘redirected’ to another Editor’. The new event is called ‘Editor Redirected’ and appears after ‘Editor Invited for Assignment’ in the ‘Editor Assigned’ section of ActionManager. This event does NOT require any configuration in the ‘Document Status’ section of ActionManager, as it has no effect on the status of a submission. It may require configuration in the ‘Letters’ section of ActionManager.

To Configure Letters: You should create a new letter for the ‘Editor Redirected’ event. A letter can be sent to the Editor to whom a submission has been redirected by configuring the letter in the appropriate Editor role’s ‘Letters’ section of ActionManager.

To create a new letter, go to System Administration, to PolicyManager, then click on the ‘Edit Letters’, and then click on the ‘Add New Letter’ button. This letter should inform the person that they have a new submission in their ‘Direct-to-Editor’ folder. This letter can be customized.