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 the program's Desk Rejection Notice (Settings, Email Templates), and sets the paper's status to desk rejected, then removes it from the queue. You can also desk reject any paper yourself from Review → Reviews & Decisions, where Desk Reject is in the Decision dropdown.
- 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.