Can I hide a manuscript's status from its author during the review process?

Yes, journals can display a status of "Manuscript Under Review" to their authors, rather than an exact timeline of where their manuscripts are in the review process.

Please note: This configuration option does not appear for journals that participate in the law review submission pool. By default, the details of the manuscript status are not shown to authors submitting to those journals.

How to:

Only the journal administrator can change the journal's settings.

From the journal administrator's Dashboard, clickMy Journals
Click theSettings tab
Select Journal Settings from the dropdown
Click Configuration Options
Select Author Options from the sidebar on the left
Click the checkbox next to the action:

How the information appears in Scholastica

An example of the default view for authors (which displays the steps that have been taken with their manuscripts)

Configured view for authors (hidden)

An example of the configured view for authors (only displays a generic "Manuscript Under Review" banner):

How the information appears in email notifications

If you've opted to allow authors to get more details about where their article is in the review process, they'll receive an email that looks like this when the first reviewer is invited to review the paper.

If you've opted to allow authors to get more details about where their article is in the review process, they'll receive an email that looks like this when the first review is submitted for their paper.