Mapping workflows and metadata
Product objectives always become more clear once I begin mapping and structuring the content. Knowing what initial integrity signals had been determined, it was important to understand where in the Editorial Manager (EM) workflow this information would be both provided by a user (e.g., author, editor, reviewer) and where it is then made available within the submission.
E2E Submission Workflow
While the larger Submissions UX team had mapped journeys for personas — author, reviewer, editor, and publisher — I knew we could learn A LOT by mapping the submission journey to rejection or published article across EM. This would also help us better understand where in the process the tasks and milestones within the process could be exploited.
This is a (loose) representation of that journey shown from an editorial perspective. It was a first step in establishing what information needed to be checked for and when to check for it.
WHAT TO KNOW: Whether or not a journal decides to publish an article is only decided after peer review and subsequent revisions. The original submission is classified as Revision 0 (R0). After the first round of peer review is completed, the reviewers’ comments and their editorial recommendation are sent to the author(s) and editor(s), respectively. The author(s) then use reviewer feedback to submit their next draft — Revision 1 (R1). Then repeat as necessary until the editor decides to publish or reject the manuscript.
This was something I worked on while as part of the discovery and research phases. I liken it to I’m Just A Bill but for research journal submissions (sans music and anthropomorphism).
Basic Metadata Structure
At this point, I began gathering the metadata we would need to capture for suspicious submissions.
