Review process¶
A review is the process by which a community evaluates a record before accepting it. When you submit a record to a community, a submission request is created. This request acts as a shared workspace between you and the community curators: both sides can exchange comments, request changes, and track the outcome — all without leaving CDS.
Who takes part¶
| Role | Who | What they can do |
|---|---|---|
| Submitter | The person who uploaded the record and submitted it to the community | Submit, edit the record during review, cancel the request, comment |
| Curator | A community member with the Curator role or above | Accept or decline the request, comment, invite reviewers |
| Reviewer | Any CDS user explicitly invited to the request by a curator | View the request and comment; cannot accept or decline |
Curators can invite any CDS user as a reviewer on a specific submission, even if that person is not a community member. This is useful when specialist input is needed before a decision is made. See Commenting for details on how to use the conversation features during a review.
Typical workflow¶
1. Submission¶
To submit a record, you must choose a community, the submission process always requires selecting a community.
- During upload: Before publishing, select the community in the deposit form. The record will not be published until a curator accepts the submission.
- After publishing: See Submit to a community for details on how to submit to another community.
2. Review¶
Once submitted, the request appears in the community's Requests tab, visible to all curators, and the record will show as In review on your dashboard. The curators can:
- Read the record and its metadata.
- Leave comments or ask for changes (see Commenting).
- Invite additional reviewers.
You will receive an email notification if a curator leaves a comment. You can update the record's metadata and ask for a re-review by dropping a comment.
3. Decision¶
The curator will make one of two decisions:
Accepted
- If the record was not yet published, it is published automatically and added to the community.
- If the record was already published, it is added to the community.
Declined
- The record is not added to the community. If it was not yet published, it remains as a draft and you can continue editing or publish it to a different community.
- You cannot resubmit the same record to the same community after a decline. If you believe the decision was made in error, contact the community curators directly.
4. After the review¶
Once a request is closed (accepted or declined), the conversation is preserved and remains readable. If the conversation is locked, no further comments can be added. See Locking the conversation for details.
If you want to remove an accepted record from a community at a later point, see Removing from a community.
Cancelling a pending submission¶
If you change your mind before a curator has made a decision, you can cancel the submission request. Open the request from the record's page and click Cancel request. The record is not affected; if it was not yet published, it remains as a draft.