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The approval workflow

When a depositor submits an item, it doesn't publish immediately — it enters a review workflow. The RIC is the academic gatekeeper: nothing in an academic collection goes public until a reviewer approves it.

The two stages

Academic submissions pass through two review stages before anything is published:

Depositor submits
        ↓
  Stage 1 — faculty review        a reviewer nominated by the author's own faculty
        ↓  approve                (publishes nothing, creates no DOI)
  Stage 2 — RIC review            YOU
        ↓  approve
  Published + permanent DOI minted

Stage 1 is the academic check. A supervisor or the faculty's designated research reviewer reads the work, and either returns it to the author with a written reason or approves it. Their approval simply moves the item into your queue — it puts nothing online. They cannot edit the record and cannot publish. See For faculty reviewers.

Stage 2 is yours, and it is the publishing decision. The RIC has the last word on academic content across all academic collections — approve, edit, reject back to the depositor, or return to the pool — without needing full administrator access.

A stage with nobody in it is skipped, not paused

If a faculty has no reviewer appointed, stage 1 doesn't hold submissions — it is bypassed and they arrive directly at your queue. An empty queue upstream never blocks work; it just means the academic check didn't happen. That is why appointing faculty reviewers matters operationally and not just on paper.

Governance content is separate

The University Collections community (Charter, Senate policies, annual reports) is not in the RIC's remit — those are edited by site administrators only. See Collections & communities.

How a task reaches you

Submissions arrive in MyDSpace once their faculty reviewer has approved them (or immediately, if that faculty has no reviewer appointed):

  • Pooled tasks — waiting for any eligible reviewer. You claim one to work on it.

  • Your tasks — items you've already claimed and are responsible for.

    MyDSpace "Workflow tasks" view showing a pooled submission

What you can do with a task

Once you've claimed a task, you can:

  • Approve — publish the item. This is the action that mints its DOI and ARK.
  • Edit — open the submission and correct the metadata or replace the file yourself, then approve.
  • Reject — send the item back to the depositor with a reason you type, so they can fix it and resubmit. Nothing is published and no DOI is minted.
  • Return to pool — release the task so another reviewer can take it (it stays with the reviewers, it does not go to the depositor).

Reject sends it back to the depositor — with your reason

Choosing Reject opens a reason box. Whatever you write there is what the depositor sees when the item returns to their MyDSpace, so make it specific. The next page walks through choosing between Edit (fix it yourself) and Reject (hand it back).

Accepting is irreversible in one way that matters

Accepting publishes the item and mints a permanent DOI. An ARK is local and can be managed, but a DOI, once registered with Crossref, is meant to last forever. Be sure before you accept — see Reviewing a submission and The copyright gate.

Pilot context

The first production load is the 50-thesis pilot, run by the RIC. It uses two accounts — one to upload, a different person to approve — so the same review steps on this page apply. Administrators handling the bulk load should also read Bulk import (SAF).

Next steps