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Reviewing a submission

This page walks through one task end to end — finding it, checking it, and deciding what happens to it.

1. Find and claim the task

  1. Click the person icon (top-right) and open MyDSpace.
  2. Set the Show filter to Workflow tasks. Submissions waiting for your faculty appear as pooled tasks — they are offered to every reviewer in your faculty's group, not assigned to one person.
  3. On the task you want, click Claim. It moves to your tasks and other reviewers stop seeing it in the pool.

Claim it, or leave it for a colleague

Only claim what you intend to look at. A claimed task sits with you until you act on it — nobody else can pick it up. If you change your mind, Return to pool puts it back.

2. Check the submission

Click View to open the item and check:

  • Is the work what it says it is? The title, type, and abstract should match the file.
  • Is the authorship right? Author names, their order, and the supervisor or department where relevant.
  • Is the description complete enough to find? Date, language, keywords. See the metadata form for what the author was asked for.
  • May the file be shared? Open the PDF and read it. If it's a published paper, the version matters — see the copyright gate.

3. Decide

A claimed task gives you three actions:

Button What it does
Approve Passes the item to the RIC for the final decision. It is not published and no DOI is created by your approval.
Reject Sends the item back to the author with a reason you type. Nothing is published. They fix it and resubmit.
Return to pool Releases your claim so another reviewer in your faculty can take it. It does not go back to the author.

Reject and Return to pool go opposite ways

They sound similar. Reject sends the work back to the author. Return to pool keeps it with your faculty's reviewers — it just means "not me."

Why there's no Edit button

At the faculty stage the repository deliberately doesn't let you change the author's record — the author fixes their own work. If only a small correction is needed and you'd rather it were simply fixed, approve it and note the issue for the RIC, who can edit at the next stage.

4. Sending work back well

Your reason is the only thing the author receives. There is no reply, no thread, and no second message — so treat it as a complete set of instructions rather than an opening remark.

  1. Click Reject.
  2. Write the reason in the box that opens. Cover everything that needs changing.
  3. Confirm.

A weak reason:

Needs work. Please fix and resubmit.

A reason the author can act on:

Three things to fix before this can go forward: (1) The uploaded PDF is the published journal version — please replace it with your accepted manuscript, as the publisher does not permit us to post the final version. (2) The abstract field is empty; please paste the abstract from page ii. (3) Your second supervisor is missing from the Authors list.

The item returns to the author's MyDSpace with your reason attached. When they resubmit, it comes back to your faculty's pool.

5. After you approve

The item moves to the RIC's queue. From your side it's done — it leaves your tasks and you don't need to track it.

The RIC then makes the publishing decision. They may still return it, including to you or to the author, if something you didn't catch turns up. When they approve, the item goes live and receives its permanent DOI.

Approving is not publishing — but it is a real endorsement

Your approval doesn't put anything online, so a mistake here is recoverable. But it is the academic sign-off the RIC relies on: they check publishing and rights, not whether the scholarship is sound. If you aren't satisfied with the work itself, this is the stage to say so.

Next steps