Editor Guide

Overview of being an editor

As an editor, you will be able to receive, organize and assign submitted articles to your editorial team using Scholastica's tags, filters and notifications. You can easily add files and manage versions of manuscript files all in one place.

To learn how to do all that and more, please read the guide below.

1. How to get started - Setting up your journal account

Scholastica makes creating a journal painless. Setup is quick and stress-free; all settings can be changed later. Follow the steps in this help doc to get started : Creating a Journal Account on Scholastica

Add editors

Editors assist in managing your journal. They have many of the same privileges as journal admin users, such as reading manuscripts and inviting reviewers.

Editors cannot manage or change a journal's payment information or grant editorial privileges to other users. Only journal admin users can make these changes.

  • To invite your team to Scholastica, the admin editor of your journal's Scholastica account will go to My Journals > Settings > Manage Editors then click “Invite New Editor”.

Screenshot of editors table showing how to invite new editors to Scholastica

Find and invite editors

  • Once you've clicked "Invite New Editor":
    • Enter the editor's email address in the To field.
    • Enter a message inviting them to become an editor of your journal.

    • Click Send Invitation.

      Now you'll set the permissions for each editor to ensure they have access to the papers that are appropriate for them and you'll also choose if the editor will be allowed to issue decisions on manuscripts. The three levels of viewing permissions are:

  • Setting manuscript access when inviting editors
    • No default access to submissions: Editors set to this level are not granted access to view any manuscripts automatically. You can manually grant access to specific papers on a case-by-case basis for editors with this level of permission.
    • Automatic access to new submissions only: Editors set to this level are only granted access to manuscripts submitted after this user was invited to gain editor access to the journal account. I.e. Journal A has received 10 submissions in March. Eddie Editor was invited to become an editor on April 1st. A new paper is submitted on April 2nd. Eddie will only have access to the new paper submitted on April 2nd and will not see the previously submitted papers unless manually granted access by another editor.
    • Automatic access to all submissions past, present, and future: Editors set to this level are automatically granted access to all papers that have ever been submitted to the journal.
  • Select the appropriate viewing permissions for each editor and set their decision-making ability, then click Save and close.

Please note: The admin editor can always edit editor manuscript permissions and decision-making ability later on the Configuration Options page.

You'll be taken back to the Manage Editors page.

  • The editor you've invited has now been added to the list of editors. Their Status will be "Pending" until they accept or decline the invitation.
  • You can resend the invitation by clicking "resend invitation" next to the Pending status if they have trouble finding the emailed invitation.

Remove editors

  • To remove old editors your law review’s admin editor will:
    • Navigate to My Journals > Settings > Manage Editors
    • Check the boxes for the editor(s) who should no longer have access to the journal account
    • Click the "Actions" dropdown that will appear once you've selected an editor and select "Revoke"

Animated gif depicting how to revoke editor rights

Remove an editor

Proxy submissions

Proxy submissions are manuscripts that you have submitted on behalf of an author. You may have created a proxy submission because the author emailed you their submission rather than submitting it directly or because you may be transitioning from your previous journal management system to Scholastica. We strongly recommend that journals DO NOT use proxies for new submissions. Authors should submit their manuscripts themselves.

Uploading a manuscript on behalf of an author generally offers the author a subpar experience because they won't have their own account on Scholastica and therefore can't log in to manage their submission, accept or decline a publication offer, or upload any supplemental files to their submission.

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
    • Click the Manuscripts tab.
    • Click Upload a manuscript for an author.
  • Enter the manuscript’s details.
    • The article title, abstract and keywords are required.
    • Upload the primary manuscript file by clicking Choose file and navigating to it on your computer. Once you’ve selected the file, click Upload file to finish adding the file.
    • Enter the author details. You can add additional authors by clicking Add another author and entering their information.
    • Click Continue to next step.
  • On the Confirm and Submit page, double-check the details you’ve entered. If you need to make any changes, click Go Back.
    • When everything looks correct, click Submit Manuscript.
  • You'll be taken to the manuscript work area for this submission.

Analytics

Scholastica offers editors a powerful suite of infographic-style analytics for insight into the review process.

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
    • Click the Peer Review section.
    • Then click the Peer Review Analytics tab.
  • The "Journal Analytics" section shows information about the journal as a whole, while the "Editor Analytics" section shows information about individual editors.
  • Read more: What types of statistics can I see about my journal?

2. Journal Settings

Journals on Scholastica are highly configurable. Once you've set up your journal, the Settings tab will be visible to the journal's administrator.

Journal Administrator

Only the journal's administrator can see and change the journal's settings, and there can be only one administrator at a time. Admin rights can be transferred to any of the journal's other editors.

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
    • Click the Settings tab.
    • Then select Journal Settings from the dropdown.
    • In the Details section, on the right-hand side is the "Transfer journal admin rights" box.
  • Select an editor from the pull-down menu.
  • Click Transfer Admin Rights.

Email options

Many actions within Scholastica will generate email notifications. In this section, a journal's administrator can determine which actions send emails and to whom.

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
    • Click the Settings tab.
    • Select Journal Settings from the dropdown
    • Click Configuration Options.
  • Click the checkbox next to each recipient for each action.
  • Click "Update Journal" to save changes.

Open/close submissions to your journal

You can open and close submissions to your journal in your journal’s Settings.

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
  • Click the Settings tab.
  • Select Journal Settings from the dropdown
  • Click Configuration Options.

To OPEN for submissions,

  • Click the button "Open submissions."

To CLOSE submissions,

  • Enter a message to explain when you’ll next be accepting submissions. 
  • Click the button "Close submissions."

Suspend submissions

Update publicly-visible journal information

You should always ensure you have the most up-to-date information available for authors on your Journal Profile. Why? Because authors read the information that you have listed prior to submitting to your journal!

Authors click “Guidelines” to read the information you have posted on your “For Authors” page when they’re preparing to submit. 

To update your journal profile information (Home, For Authors, Editorial Board)

The admin editor will go to My Journals > Settings > Visit Journal Website then click edit page in the grey toolbar on the left to edit the current page.

3. Manage manuscripts

This section gives an overview of how Scholastica helps editors organize, access, and take action on manuscripts submitted to their journal. For more information on creating and saving custom manuscript table views, please read more here: Manuscript table.

View all manuscripts

Filtering, searching, and sorting manuscripts

Filter manuscripts

  • Manuscripts can be filtered by their status, review condition, and which editor they are assigned to.
    • By default, the filter tool is set to: Show me all manuscripts assigned to anyone.
    • The manuscript status field can be set to under review, accepted, rejected with reviews, desk rejected, withdrawn, and revise & resubmit.
    • The assigned editor field can be set to no one, or to individual editor(s).
    • The review status field can be set to late responses or reviews, pending reviews, and unanswered invitations.
    • The reviews received field can be set to 0 reviews, 1 review, 2 reviews, 3+ reviews.
    • The invitations sent field can be set to no reviewers invited, 1-5 invitations, 6-11 invitations, and 12+ invitations.

Search manuscripts

  • Manuscripts can be searched using the search bar.
    • Type a query like an author's name, a manuscript's title, or tags; the manuscript table will automatically update to accommodate your search.
    • Read more: Advanced Search

Sort manuscripts

  • Manuscripts can be sorted by author title, assigned editor, submission date, status, rating or expedite request date.
    • To sort by any of these fields, click the top of their respective column.
    • Click the column again to reverse the order.

Tag manuscripts

Discussions

Each manuscript has a Discussions section in the Editor Work Area in which editors can communicate with other editors, reviewers assigned to the manuscript, or the primary author (they can also contact you):

Message recipients receive an email notification of the message and can respond via email. To learn more, read How do discussions work?

Your journal can also be contacted via the publicly listed email address on your Journal Profile page:

Public contact email on journal profile page

Messages from authors will come as emails to the journal's administrative email address. You can check or change this email address:

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
    • Click the Settings tab.
    • Select Journal Settings from the dropdown
  • Messages go to the email address in the "Email" field.

4. Manage reviewers

Scholastica helps you invite reviewers, and gives you tools to manage your reviewer deadlines. You can customize your reviewer feedback form, and use the built-in reviewer metrics to improve your reviewer workflow over time.

Reviewer form

When you invite reviewers to provide feedback on a manuscript, they'll receive a form along with the manuscript. The Reviewer form structures the reviewer's feedback for editors and can be customized for your journal. Learn how here.

Default Reviewer Form

Invite reviewers

Reviewers can be invited from within Scholastica - whether they're already using it or not.

Invite reviewers and read reviews in the manuscript work area

Reviewer invitation templates

If you'd like to make inviting reviewers quicker and easier for you and your team, you can use reviewer invitation templates to do so.

Your journal account has space for your editorial team to create up to 10 templates that you can then use to invite reviewers to your manuscripts. Just navigate to an 'under review' manuscript, click Reviewers then click Invite Reviewer and either select an existing user or navigate to non-Scholastica user. Once on the reviewer invitation letter page, just click "EDIT" to create a new template letter that all of your editorial team can view and use.

Give your template a name like, "Managing Editor's template" or "Special Issue Reviewer Invite" and fill in the body of the invitation letter itself. Not sure what to write? Feel free to build off of our example template here.

When you're ready to use your template invitation letters, simply click the name of the template you've created to populate the form with your prewritten text, then customize the letter as needed before sending it to your potential reviewer.

Read reviews

Editors can instantly see the feedback provided by reviewers.

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
  • If a manuscript has reviews, a rating will appear in the "Rating" column.
    • Click a manuscript with reviews.
    • In the Editor Work Area, click Reviewers.
  • If an invited reviewer has accepted the invitation and submitted a review, their "Status" will be "Accepted Review Submitted"
    • Click read review.

Edit review deadlines

Quickly and easily notify reviewers that a deadline for an article's review has changed.

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
    • Make sure you're in the Peer Review section
    • Click the Manuscripts tab.
  • Find the manuscript that needs a revised review deadline.
    • Click the manuscript.
    • In the Editor Work Area, click Reviewers.
    • In the "Deadline" column, click edit.
  • In the "Due date" field, select the new due date for this review.

Reviewer metrics

Editors can learn about scholars who have reviewed manuscripts for their journals

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
    • Make sure you're in the Peer Review section
    • Click the Reviewers tab.
  • By default, reviewers are sorted by name.
    • Click a reviewer to see their history of reviews for your journal.

Reviewer table and data

Individual reviewer details for the journal

5. Make decisions

Scholastica provides tools to help editors communicate the journal's final publication decision to authors. Scholastica also includes tools to manage the after-decision workflow (when applicable), such as with revise and resubmit decisions.

Make decisions

Once you've gotten sufficient feedback and are ready to make a publication decision about a Manuscript, Scholastica allows you to give the manuscript a decision and notify the author of said decision.

Scholastica assumes that once a decision is made, any additional reviews are moot since they cannot impact the final decision. When a decision is made, we send automatic emails letting reviewers know that a decision was made (though not what the decision was) and thus no more reviews can be submitted.

To make a decision:

  • From your Dashboard, click My Journals.
    • Click the Manuscripts tab.
    • Select the manuscript.
    • Click Make Decision.
  • Enter decision details.
    • From the drop select, choose Accept, Revise & Resubmit, or Reject (please note, law reviews won't have the Revise & Resubmit option). 
    • Enter a message to the author either by typing a new one, or by selecting from your saved decision letter templates.
    • Select whether the decision should be shared with the author immediately or in two to five days (this "delayed decision" option is commonly helpful for journals issuing desk rejections shortly after a submission was received) and if an email should be sent to the author.
    • Attach any necessary files to the decision (reviewer notes, final edits, etc.)
    • Click Submit decision(NOTE: the decisions are final and cannot be undone).
    • If you're issuing a decision of Accept, but will still need the author to make minor tweaks, copy-edits, or changes prior to publication, we recommend instructing your authors in your decision letter to send you their updated, post-Acceptance files via Discussions.
  • Read more:

Making decisions in the manuscript work area

Decision templates

Since the messages that accompany decisions are often very similar, Scholastica allows editors to create message templates that will automatically fill in the author's name and article information when making a decision.

  • On the Make Publication Decision page, use a saved message template by clicking its name.

Decision templates on the Make Publication Decision page

  • Edit a saved template by clicking the small pencil icon.
  • Make a new template by clicking the small pencil icon next to an unnamed decision template.
    • Use merge tags to include dynamic information in your template.
    • Scholastica will automatically fill in those values for a given manuscript.
  • Click Save changes and close.

Editing decision templates

Editing reviews before sharing with authors

Sometimes reviewer feedback can be harsher than it is helpful and constructive. If you have customized your review form to include fields that are visible to authors, then you will have the chance to "clean up" those overzealous reviews before they're shared with the author. 

Reviews are never shared with the author until after a decision is made. To edit the review(s) before they are shared with the author, you'll just click "Make a Decision", fill out the decision letter as normal then click "Continue" at the bottom. 

If you do not see "Continue" and just see "Submit Decision", then your reviewer form does not include any information that is visible to authors, so authors will only see the decision letter.

Editing reviews before sharing them with authors

6. Publish articles and issues

Scholastica allows you to publish articles individually, or to group them into an issue. You can view an example issue here

Publish an issue

The first step in publishing an issue with Scholastica is to create an issue! Just click the blue "New" button and select "Issue" from the dropdown

You will then fill out high-level information about your issue. This includes:

  1. Volume (required)
  2. Issue Number (required)
  3. Lede (required)
  4. Year (required)
  5. Description of the issue (required)
  6. Cover Image (recommended)
  7. Title (recommended)

The next step is to add articles to the issue. 

To add an article that you have already created in Scholastica first click 'Articles'.  

Next, click 'Add Article' to choose from a list of articles that you've already created. Click 'Save articles' to save each article that you've added to the issue.


You have two ways to add and publish articles on your journal

You can either : 


1. Create new articles and add them to the issue.

To create a new article for an issue, you can click the blue "New" button and choose "PDF Article" from the dropdown.


2. Import articles that have been submitted through the peer review system in Scholastica and that have also been accepted  

If you have manuscripts that were accepted and peer-reviewed within Scholastica, you can import those for publication on the New Article page. Just click "Import it here". 



Fill out the remaining details for each article by clicking on each section that needs your attention and click 'Save' to save the article details. To add them to your issue, open the issue and follow the steps above to add the saved articles. Once you've created all of your articles and added them to your issue, you can edit the order of the articles if need be by dragging the articles into the order you'd like. 

The final step is clicking the "publish issue" button. Once published, all articles will be published and your issue will be found on your journal's public profile page on Scholastica.

Publish a single article

With Scholastica, your journal can always publish articles as soon as they're ready. Wondering why you should publish articles outside of an issue? Read why here. 

To publish an article outside of an issue, click on the "Publishing" tab, click the blue "New" button, and select article. Once you've filled out the form, click "Publish Article" to immediately publish the article as a standalone piece. Any articles not already in another  issue can later be compiled into an issue and published that way as well.

Learn more about publishing here.

7. Law Reviews

Check out our guide especially for law review editors here

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