We’re continuing to improve Scholastica to meet the needs of our growing user base! With over 200 journals on the platform, Scholastica is expanding by the day. To address our increasing volume of journals, this month we added discipline categories to all journals on Scholastica to make it easier for authors and readers to sort journals by field. We also rolled out some great features including: bulk manuscript tagging, the ability for editors to upload files to decision letters, and the ability for editors to allow referees to upload files with their reviewer comments. Read on for the details of Scholastica’s newest features!
Journal Disciplines
We have many more journals on Scholastica than when we started, with a wide range of law reviews and peer-reviewed journals. To help journals set themselves apart on Scholastica and to make it easier for authors and readers to find publications in their field, we’ve introduced journal disciplines to the in-app and public facing “Browse Journals” pages. Now, when scholars visit the “Browse Journals” page, either from Scholastica’s homepage or from the link at the top of their Scholastica dashboard they will see a drop down menu at the top of the page with the option to view all journals or to sort journals by: humanities, law reviews, social sciences, and STEM.
If you have an existing journal on Scholastica, you’re all set, we added relevant disciplines to all journals currently on the site. If you’re looking to create a new journal on Scholastica, you can choose the discipline you would like your journal to be listed under during the journal create process.
Bulk Tagging
Have a tag that you need to add to multiple manuscripts, such as a journal issue number? Now, rather than having to add that tag to each submission one at a time, you can do it in bulk. Just select the manuscripts you want to bulk tag (they will highlight in blue when you click them) and then click on the “bulk actions” drop down menu and select “assign tags.” Click yes to the prompt that asks if you want to tag all of the manuscripts that you selected, and you’re all set - the manuscripts you chose will be tagged!
Attach File to a Decision
One of the best ways to provide value to authors during the submission process is to give them specific details about their manuscript decision, particularly for authors with rejected submissions. Whether you want to attach a publication offer, final manuscript edits, reviewer notes, or other helpful documentation you can now do it all on Scholastica. Just navigate to the optional “add file” button at the bottom of the decision text box and attach whatever file you’d like.
Attach File to a Review
Now editors can also activate a configuration option allowing referees to attach files to their reviews. To give reviewers the ability to attach files to their comments just go to My Journal > Settings > Configuration Options > Allow reviewers to upload attachments with reviews. Check the box to employ the setting. Now, when reviewers go to submit their comments they will see the option to attach files at the bottom of the review form.
New My Reviews Page
We also updated the “My Reviews” page to make it easier for reviewers to keep track of multiple manuscripts that they are working on. Now, when referees log into Scholastica and go to “My Reviews” all reviews are clearly separated by assignment boxes that include the title of each assigned manuscript, the name of the journal it’s for, and either the due date of the review in red or the date completed in grey. Before, reviewers had to look through a list of assignments to find what they were looking for. With the new “My Reviews” page design reviewers can know where they’re at with assignments in a matter of seconds.
We hope you enjoy these new features and that they make your journal’s experience on Scholastica even better! As always, if you have any questions feel free to reach out to us at support@scholasticahq.com.
