Desk Screening
Work through the queue of papers that tripped a desk-rejection policy check — confirm a desk rejection (which records a decision and emails the author) or dismiss a flag, leaving it as an audit trail.
Purpose
Desk Screening is a focused queue of papers that tripped one of your program's desk-rejection policy checks at submission time. Each flagged paper shows as a card with its flags, and you decide whether to Confirm a desk rejection or Dismiss the flag.
When you use it
- To review papers automatically flagged for policy issues (for example, page limits or other configured checks).
- To desk-reject a paper that genuinely violates policy — recording the decision and notifying the author.
- To clear false-positive flags without rejecting the paper.
Desk Screening only surfaces papers that your desk-rejection policy flagged. The policy itself — page limits, the checklist, affirmations, and screening severity — is configured under Settings → Review Config, not here.
Walkthrough
- 1
Open the Submissions tab and click the Desk Screening sub-tab.
- 2
Review the queue. The header shows the count of papers pending screening. Each card lists the paper, its flags, and submission details. If the queue is empty you will see a "Nothing to screen." message.
- 3
To reject a flagged paper, click Confirm on its card. A confirmation modal lets you review the flag summary and add a private note before confirming.
- 4
Confirming records a desk-reject decision, emails the author, and sets the paper's status to desk-rejected — then removes it from the queue.
- 5
To clear a flag without rejecting, click Dismiss. The paper leaves the queue but its flags remain as an audit trail.
Tips
Confirming a desk rejection is the same path as a manual desk reject: it creates the decision record and notifies the author by email. Use Dismiss for false positives — it only clears the pending flag and keeps the flag history for the record.