a time saving mvc-based automated journal management

DUET Journal 37 Volume 5, Issue 2, December 2019

A Time Saving MVC-based Automated Journal Management System for Academia and Industry

Fazlul Hasan Siddiqui1*, Md. Mostafizer Rahman1 and Md. Motiur Rahman2

1Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Dhaka University of Engineering & Technology, Gazipur, Bangladesh 2Department of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Chattogram Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chattogram, Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

A journal is a periodic publication where result of different researches and innovations are published. Researchers, students, and contributors have used journal to share and collaborate research findings among others. Effective management of entire process from submission to publication of a research article is very crucial to motivate researchers in research. In most journals, especially in Bangladesh, the entire journal management is conducted manually. Conventional journal management systems are limited to only online submission and there after manual processing of back-end tasks. Hence, it is necessary to replace this conventional i.e. manual journal management systems with a fully automated system to overcome all these challenges. This paper outlines an MVC (model-view-controller)-based automated online journal management system aiming at utilizing the power of computer to handle the current challenges of the manual system of journal management. This new system provides ample benefits which include - automation of article submissions, tracking status of articles, automated reviewer assignment and review collection, double-blind peer-reviewing, and computerization of publication process. Participants from any part of the world are able to submit their articles and access all published articles using this online journal management system. The system is designed, developed, and analyzed by Laravel, JavaScript, and a database where the uses of Laravel made the system more secure, manageable, and extendable by isolating the presentation logic from the business logic. We have conducted a comparative analysis on the ratio of article submission in our new system and the article processing speed.

Keywords: Journal Management, Web Application, Peer Review, Web Development.

*Corresponding author’s email: [email protected]

1. INTRODUCTION

The use of the internet is increasing very rapidly in every sector of our country. Online system supersedes all manual systems in social, business, and educational sectors. With the burgeoning need of an online system in these sectors, there is also a need for an online journal management system to make the entire processing easier, effective and automated. There are different types of journals such as academic/scholarly journals, trade journals, current affairs/opinion magazines, popular magazines, and newspapers [1]. The academic journal publishes research findings from various academic fields. Mostly researchers, students, and contributors have used journals for publishing their research works so that people from all around the world can exploit the benefits of that research. Researchers and journal managers face some challenges during the manual submission and publication of an article. However, online journal management system lessens all difficulties faced by these peoples by converting the manual system into a web-based automated system [2]. The automated system facilitates to capture and record all activities performed in the system.

The automated journal management system covers the entire process from submission to final publication through a journal website [3]. Each user like author, editor, reviewer, editor in chief, and administrator can perform their responsibilities through a journal website. Authors can access the necessary information and submit an article through a journal website. After submission, authors can trace the submitted article along with comments from journal website. Editor in chief assigns editors to oversee articles and editors assign experts as reviewers through journal website. The role of a journal manager like addition of new reviewers, publishing deadline of volume and issue, assignment of editors and reviewers, and so on are also carried out through the website [4].

Submitted papers in a journal are reviewed in different ways to judge the quality of research. Peer review is a technique of reviewing articles by one or more peoples who are expert in relevant field. There are two types of peer-review such as single-blind peer-review and double-blind peer-review [3]. The single-blind peer review means authors do not know who is reviewing the paper. This idea

A Time SAving mvC-bASed AuTomATed JournAl mAnAgemenT SySTem for ACAdemiA And induSTry


ensures that authors cannot manipulate reviewers while they are reviewing but reviewers may get biased as they know author’s information. To eliminate the problems of single-blind peer-review, the double-blind peer review has surfaced where reviewers do not know the identity of authors and authors do not know the identity of editors [5]. The second technique is useful for ensuring parity during article reviewing that assists journal managers to maintain journal quality.

First step of evaluating articles is to check the originality of research. This step helps reviewers to find out the novelty and to proceed for further processing. One way of checking originality of research is to calculate the similarity with other works. When the techniques for measuring similarities are attached with journal websites, it becomes easier to carry out the peer-reviewing.

Journal management system is very important that defines how easier it is to carry out tasks in journals [6]. Typically, most of the journals manage their back-end tasks like editor assignment, reviewer assignment and review collection, and articles evaluation manually and these are carried out from the outside of that journal websites. Hence, it is time to make the entire process from submission to publication automated for speedy compilation. Web applications for journal management have brought revolutionary changes in the research world. A web application makes it easier to disseminate research findings to the concerned people [7]. Researchers and contributors can easily submit and access research articles through computers and smartphones from any corner of the world.

A web application is an application program that is stored in a remote server, and accessed through a web browser over the internet [8]. To operate a web application, a web server, an application server, and a database server are needed to install where web servers accept requests coming from clients, application servers complete the client’s requested tasks, and database servers store essential data. Here, one of challenge in web applications is to ensure security. Web development using raw PHP makes the system less secure since presentation logics and business logics are placed together in the web page. Additionally, the procedure of connecting different web APIs is not straight forward in raw PHP. Hence, a new concept called model-view-controller (MVC) has developed that ensures more security by keeping presentation logics and business logics separately. Different frameworks of PHP are used for developing web applications [9]including authors, reviewers, editors, and collectors. Each participant in the process plays a different role, and cooperates with other participants. The Web system is implemented using open source solutions on the Linux platform. A three-tiered information system architecture has been used. An object oriented PHP (PHP hypertext preprocessor. An MVC-based PHP framework called Laravel is widely

used for web development since it provides numerous benefits such as building authentication and authorization systems, integration with mail servers, routing, sessions, and caching, etc.

In this paper, we identified all challenges faced by researchers and journal managers in manual journal management systems. Then, we designed and developed a MVC-based automated journal management system using Laravel. For making the system more secure, we used an MVC-based PHP framework, Laravel, which protects codes form direct access during browsing. We used a customizable MySQL database to store voluminous data generated from the system. The database is organized deliberately by maintaining multi-relationships among tables which remove data redundancy and make the system more light-weight. We also compared the ratio of article submissions in the new system with respect to the old one. In addition, we observed article processing time taken by our new system with respect to the old system. We incorporated a technique into our developed system for measuring similarities of submitted articles with others as a prior evaluation step which facilitates to be consistent in quality maintenance.

This paper is divided into five sections. The second section examines features and tools used for developing the system. In the third section, discussion on system details are carried out. The next section focuses on result and discussion of the new MVC-based journal management system. Conclusions with some limitations are drawn in the final sections.

2. BACKGROUND STUDY

Most of the journals especially in Bangladesh are namely online but activities carried out in the administrator-end are manual. An automated journal management system is needed to replace these manual systems. Automation of a journal depends on how much features the journal covers.

2.1 Feature Review

We studied some renowned international journals and found the following features an online journal have [10]:

2.1.1 Web-based article submission

Article publishing starts with article submission that is carried out using journal website. Authors can register by providing all required information through journal websites. They can submit articles by giving information about co-authors, title, abstract, keywords and other essential materials after login. Authors get a notification



email after each successful submission. There are scopes for authors to edit the initial submission if they upload anything wrong.

2.1.2 Real-time tracing of article

After article submission, authors can trace the status of the submitted articles through journal websites. Authors are privileged to monitor the decision (under editor, under review, major revision required, requested resubmission, accepted with minor corrections, etc.) of administrator regarding the fate of articles. Besides, authors can access the decision of journal chief, and perform asked operations through journal websites.

2.1.3 Evaluation of article

The evaluation of articles after submissions is carried out by following two possible ways- sending review requests to reviewers manually using email or incorporate reviewers to online evaluation panel of journals [10], [11]commissioned by the Open Society Institute (OSI.

In the first model, editors send a copy of articles in attachment with a review request to reviewers by mentioning how long reviewers have to complete their review [12]. Then reviewers reply editors with decision and evaluation scores after completing the review.

In the second model, reviewers are directly attached with evaluation panel by creating accounts through the journal website. Here, editors assign articles to reviewers using the journal website. Then reviewers access and evaluate assigned articles through the journal website. After completing the evaluation, reviewers send their decisions regarding paper publications using the journal website.

2.1.4 Online editorial processes

Editors play an important role in article publications. Editors receive articles and conduct initial evaluation such as check article formatting, perform plagiarism, and check whether the article covers aim and scope of the journal etc. Then assign relevant reviewers to the articles if the articles pass the initial checking, otherwise, send back to authors with some comments [13]. Editors take comments and decisions from reviewers and make the final decision after examining all of these. The entire processes discussed here are carried out using the journal website directly. Some other operations like deadline extension, advertisement of new volume-issue, addition of new reviewers, etc. are also carried out on the journal website.

2.1.5 Publishing article in online

Journal managers publish all accepted articles online through the journal website. This feature is important to disseminate the recognized research findings among the peoples. Researchers and contributors can access all published articles from the journal website [14].

2.2 Software Review

A goal of this project is to develop an automated web-based online journal management system to eliminate all challenges faced by researchers and journal managers. We reviewed PHP, Laravel, JavaScript, MySQL, and XAMP server and tried to find where they perform well.

2.2.1 Hypertext preprocessor (PHP)

PHP is an HTML-embedded Web scripting language that is inserted into the HTML for designing web applications. When users access PHP pages, servers parse the PHP code and convert the output of PHP functions into HTML. The transformation of PHP codes into HTML during browsing prevents users from direct access [15]. This makes PHP pages secure enough from illicit access and manipulation. PHP is integrated with multiple numbers of database servers such as MySQL, Informix, PostgreSQL, Sybase, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL servers. PHP also supports a significant number of popular protocols such as POP3, IMAP, and LDAP.

2.2.2 Laravel

Laravel, an open-source and free PHP web framework, is used in web development which follows the model-view-controller architecture. The technique of isolating business logic from presentation logic makes Laravel more popular for web development [16]. Laravel is widely used for web development particularly to perform routing, authentication, sessions, and caching. Web development is robust now for easy implementation of common tasks such as database migration, real-time event broadcasting, multiple back-ends for session and cache storage used in web development due to Laravel.

2.2.3 JavaScript

JavaScript, a client-side scripting language, is mainly used for enhancing the interaction of users with the webpage. A nice and interactive user interface sometimes attract users to visit the website. Developers can make a webpage more lively and interactive by using JavaScript. A limitation of JavaScript being a scripting language is that it cannot run itself. When users access HTML webpages where



JavaScript is inside, then scripts are delivered to the browser for execution and users can visualize the effects in the interface [17]. JavaScript is supported by all modern web browsers and mainly used to design client-side validation, lively drop-down menus, manipulating date and time, controlling pop-up windows and dialog boxes.

2.2.4 MySQL

MySQL is an open-source, free, and easy-to-use database management system that supports a large database up to 50 million rows or more in a table. Normally, the size limit for a table is 4GB but can be expanded according to needs by making configurations [18]. MySQL is popularly used as back-end storage in web applications. It supports many programming languages such as PHP, Java, C, C++, etc. An important feature of MySQL is that it allows modifying the underlying environment to fit their organizations. Information regarding account creation, submission of article, review process, payments, online publication, and editorial works are stored in the database.

2.2.5 XAMP

XAMP stands for Cross-Platform (X), Apache (A), MariaDB (M), PHP (P) and Perl (P) which is an open-source web server for hosting and testing web applications. It is very useful for web developers to create local servers and host web applications here for testing purposes.

Here, we developed a fully automated journal management system using a PHP framework, Laravel, which makes the system more secure. Laravel makes web development easier as it includes several built-in packages. The user interface was designed using JavaScript to make it more lively and interactive. We used a customizable database called MySQL to store voluminous data generated from the system. The database was organized deliberately by keeping multi-relationships among tables that removes data redundancy and makes the system more light-weight. Here, we made the entire management process easier by ensuring all features including online article submission and real-time tracing, online reviewer selection and evaluation, online editorial process, and publishing through the website. We included a module of Turnitin in our system to measure similarities of articles for quick and quality evaluation.

3. SYSTEM DETAILS

The project was aiming at developing an automated journal management system that would make all tasks from submission to publication easier. To make a system more effective and efficient, it is necessary to

perform an analysis before starting the final design and implementation. System analysis deals with collecting operational data, understanding the information flow, finding out problems, and evolving solutions for improving the system functioning. Here, the analysis carried out on two phases-web design and database maintenance. In the web design phase, all essential features were identified and categorized according to the role of users. The proper design and implementation of the database were also analyzed to make the system robust and light-weight.

3.1 Workflow of our Journal Management System

The automated peer review journal management system is an important platform of scientific manuscript publishing that ensures the highest level of quality of a manuscript. Our proposed automated journal management system provides very systematic, secure and smooth manuscript regulator for the authors, editors, and reviewers. Also, our system has the advantage of having a peer-review process for both blind and non-blind. The workflow of our automated journal management system is shown in Fig.1. The workflow shows all steps between manuscript reception and manuscript publication, which are carried out in an automated way. A submitted manuscript passes through the following order: Editor-in-Chief (EIC) to Associate Editors (AE), AE assigns at least two reviewers who return the manuscript with recommendations to EIC after evaluation. The submitted papers may get rejection in three phases of this cycle- from EIC and AE before starting the final reviewing, and from EIC after taking all review comments from reviewers. These entire operations are carried out through a web application, which is designed and developed meticulously and deliberately.

3.2 Web Design Analysis

The entire interactions for carrying out all tasks are done on the website. Hence, it is essential to keep everything available and easy to use in the website. The following options are incorporated in the website to make the management effective and time saving- home, editorial body, contact, archives, call for paper, author’s instruction, submit paper, paper status, notice, login, register, my paper, create reviewer, reviewer’s paper, editor’s paper, all papers, add notice, change role, add volume-issue, manage paper status, control paper submission deadline, add user specialization, send email, etc. The access right to these options have been kept reserved depending on the role of users. Here, users of the system are classified in five categories such as author, editor, reviewer, editor in chief, and admin. Use cases based on the role of users are shown in Fig. 2, 3, and 4 which depict the access rights and privileges of users. Here, authors are researchers who submit articles in the journals for review and publish.



Authors submit manuscript

Editor-in-Chief (EIC) evaluates manuscript

EIC makes decision whether it proceed or not

Manuscript is Rejected, if it is not passed primary criteria

Assigned manuscript to Associate Editors (AE)

AEs evaluate manuscript again

AEs make a decision whether it proceed or not

Manuscript is Rejected, if it is not passed AEs’ assessment

Assigned manuscript to at least two Reviewers

Reviewers review manuscripts, made comments or recommendation for each manuscript then

forward to AEs

AEs evaluate manuscript based on Reviewer comments and send back to the EIC

EIC makes decision based on AEs comments

Manuscript is Rejected, if it is not passed review process

Manuscript is Accepted for publication

Manuscript is sent back to author for revision or resubmit

Fig. 1: Workflow of our developed automated journal management system.



Users are other researchers who visit the journal website to collect information or to access the published papers of the journal. Editors are those people who are responsible for overseeing the assigned papers and are assigned by the editor in chief. Editors assign experts as reviewers to review articles and also evaluate papers by itself. The reviewer are the experts who evaluate an article for publication. The entire management and review collection are done by editor in chiefs while administrators are responsible for performing the most crucial back-end parts including reviewer creation, deadline and volume-issue management, etc.

Here, a database is necessary to store a huge volume of data to perform all the aforementioned tasks. The robustness and responsiveness of web applications are highly depended on the organization of the database. A better database organization helps to remove data redundancy and keeps the system light-weight.

3.3 Database Schema

The developed system generates a huge volume of data that is stored in a MySQL database. The tables in the database are organized in such a way that facilitates data reuse from one table to another one. The designed database for this system contains 22 tables where most of them are interrelated. The database schema of this system is shown in Fig. 5. The tables used in the database are- specialization_user, specialization, roles, role_user, eiceditor, editorreviewers, users, eicauthors, notices, timeline, papers, comments, password_resets, paperstatus, paperrequests, paperusers, statuses, papersubmissions, volumeissues, eics, coauthors, migrations, etc.

Security of web applications mainly depend on how much the database is secure. In this project, the database has been designed deliberately to face all threats such as database injection, malware, unmanaged sensitive data, storage media exposure, and so on from the inside and outside of the database.

Home

Notices

Contact

Editor Body

Author’s Instruction

Call for Papers

Archives

Paper Status

Submit Paper

Author User

Fig. 2: Role of author and user

Home

Notices

Contact

Editor Body


Call for Papers

Archives

Reviewer’s Paper

Editor’s Paper

Create Reviewer

Editor Reviewer

Fig. 3: Role of editor and reviewer

Home

Role Management

Deadline Management

Control Notices

Contact

Editor Body


Call for Papers

Archives

All Papers

Send Email

Create Reviewer

Volume-Issue Control

Editor in Chief Administrator

Fig. 4: Role of editor in chief and administrator



Fig. 5: Database schema



Fig. 6: Accessible options for authors

Fig. 7: Functionalities of an editor in chief

The analysis of web interface and database design helped to develop an effective system that manages the journal efficiently from inception to final processing. After completing the analysis, the final and important phase known as design and implementation was carried out.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The design and implementation phase is conducted based on the detailed system analysis and user requirements. The front-end is designed using HTML and JavaScript that makes the user interface more lively and interactive. The back-end is designed using an MVC-based PHP framework called Laravel that makes the system more secure by isolating presentation and business logic from each other. Data is stored in the MySQL database that allows customizing the database as our requirements. The entire process of the project based on the role of users like author, admin, editor in chief, editor, and reviewer are discussed here.

Authors submit their research findings as articles by following the journal format through the journal website. In this system, authors can navigate home, about, archives,

submission, notices, login, and register button as shown in Fig. 6. Using the Home button, authors access information about the journal in a nutshell. The editorial body and the contact details of the journal are found under the About button. By navigating the Archives button users access all published articles of the journal. The Registration button is used to be registered in the system. During registration, the information about first name, last name, address, designation, department, institute, specializations, contact no, email address, and a password has to provide. The editor and the reviewer can also register as an author from this option. In that case, the admin has to change the role from author to editor or reviewer accordingly. After registration, a confirmation email is sent to the registered mail address. After registration, all users associated with the journal like the author, chief in editor, editor, and reviewer can login using the Login button to accomplish their task. After login, the author can submit an article and trace the status of the article. The retrieval option for forgot password and password reset is also kept here. The authors can access published notices by the journal manager by navigating the Notices button. The information regarding deadline and author’s instruction are found under the Submission menu.



Authors submit articles under the Submit Paper button by providing the following information-paper title, paper abstract, details of co-authors, specialization field, and the final manuscript in PDF format. Here, information about author and co-authors do not have in the final submitted manuscript. After successful submission, a confirmation email containing information of paper id generated by journal, volume and issue number, authors and co-authors information, title, abstract is sent to the registered mail address. The more important and effective feature of a journal management system is the ability of tracking the status of submitted articles. After login, authors can see the status of the submitted articles.

Here, authors can see the paper id and current status of the paper assigned by the editor in chief, and access all versions of the submitted manuscript from this page. If the editor in chief send any request like revised paper, camera-ready paper, rebuttal, author’s declaration, and others, the author can access that request and complete the necessary tasks from this page. The author can upload the revised paper, rebuttal, camera-ready paper, and author’s declaration from this option. The author can access all comments coming from editor in chief and then can take necessary measures accordingly. User interface of author’s end has been decorated very attractively and has been kept everything very easy to access and operate. The

Fig. 8: Functionalities of an editor

Fig. 9: Role of a reviewer



entire process from initial registration to final acceptance has been made automated so that authors can access more information with few visits.

The supreme power regarding initial submission to final publication is given to the editor in chief (EIC). EIC can access all active and published volumes and issues of the journal. Fig. 7 shows how EICs conduct their responsibilities. All versions of submitted articles are accessible to the EIC. EIC has the privileges to assign editors and check in online whether the editors and reviewers have been replied or not. When articles are assigned to editors, a confirmation email containing details of the article is sent to the editor. Editor in chiefs have privileges to remove any assigned editor from an article if they deem it is necessary. If any request like revised paper, camera-ready paper, rebuttal, author’s declaration, and so on needs to send to the author, the EIC can send it and trace that of through the system. The comments from editors and reviewers are accessible to the EIC, and EIC can send comments to the authors also. The status like pending, under review, accepted, accepted conditionally, rejected, and withdrawn of the submitted paper is changed by EIC based on the recommendations from editors and reviewers. Here, every action of the editor in chief has done using the journal website. All these thing are kept very logically so that the EIC can finish assigned tasks very anon.

The responsibility of editors shown in Fig. 8 has started when the EIC assign articles to the editor. The main responsibility of an editor is to oversee the assigned article. The reviewer is assigned by an editor and the evaluation progress of reviewers are monitored by the editor. The entire responsibilities of the editor can be carried out through the journal website. The editor can trace whether the reviewer replied or not. The decision of the editor is also sent to the EIC from here. The editor can access all comments from the EIC, and the reviewers on

the assigned manuscript. Here, the data flow among the EIC, editor, and reviewer are kept interrelated.

Reviewers do not have information of authors as the journal is double-blind peer-reviewed. Reviewers evaluate assigned articles and send decisions to the corresponding editors. The responsibilities of reviewers are shown in Fig. 9. The evaluation is carried out online by following a journal template that ensures robustness and parity during evaluation. An evaluation matrix set by the journal manager is visible to reviewers’ end while reviewing that assists the reviewers to rate the quality of articles based on some important and measurable criteria. The average of given ratings along with the individual rating is sent to the editor in chiefs that defines the overall quality of articles. This feature helps editors as well as editor in chiefs to conclude the acceptance decisions.

The administrator manages the entire background tasks such as user role determination, volume-issue addition, notice management, timeline control, reviewer creation, specialization and status management, etc. as shown in Fig.10. Here, every single task of administrators is conducted through the journal website. In the absence of editor in chief (EIC), the administrator oversees the responsibilities of the EIC.

Our proposed automated journal management system saves valuable time as well as significantly reduces the number of steps. Manual journal processing systems involve additional works (physical and technical) for each step of manuscript processing from editor-in-chief to authors through associate editors and reviewers. We have compared some task lists at every step between manual and automated systems. The number of approximate steps involved in the manual and the automated system are shown in Table I. We can calculate the total steps/tasks are needed for each actor by the following equation (1).

/Total Steps Tasks in steps1 actors= =/ (1)

Where n= number of manuscripts, stps= Number of steps/tasks of every actor, and actrs= Authors, Editor-in-Chief (EIC), Associate Editor (AE), and Reviewers.

From Table II, the statistical results show that the automated system reduced the workload for both the author, the editor-in-chief by about 50% compared to the manual process. Also, the automated system reduces the workload for Associate Editor (AEs) and Reviewers by about 40% and 33.33%, respectively. The automated journal system is 43.33% (approximately) more efficient than the manual journal processing system. The statistical results prove the superiority of our proposed automatic journal system over the manual system.

Fig. 10: Responsibilities of an administrator



Table I: Tasks comparison at each step between manual and automated systems

Actors TasksApproximate Steps/Tasks (steps)

Manual System Automated SystemAuthor Manuscript Submit Through i). Physical mail, ii). Email i). Submit through systemEditor-in-Chief (EIC)

Manuscript Receive, Assess, and Decision

i) Search regularly for new manuscript in physical or electronic mailbox, ii) Print manuscripts, iii) assess manuscripts, iv) send back rejection decision to Authors or forward manuscript to Associate Editor (AE) via physical or electronic mail, v) wait for recipients (Authors, AEs) confirmation, vi) response may come to EIC through phone, physical or electronic mail from both Authors or AEs.

i) received manuscript from authors through system, ii) assess manuscript, iii) send back rejection decision to Authors or forward manuscript to AEs through system

Associate Editor (AE)

Manuscript Receive, Assess, Decision

i) manuscript receipt acknowledgement send back to EIC through phone, physical or electronic mail, ii) assess manuscript and send back a decision to EIC or forward to Reviewers via physical or electronic mail, iii) wait for recipients (EIC, Reviewers) confirmation

i) assess manuscript and send back a decision to EIC or forward to Reviewers through system

Reviewers Manuscript Receive, Assess, Comments

i) manuscript receipt acknowledgement send to AEs through phone, physical or electronic mail, ii) assess manuscript and send back a review comments and recommendation to AEs through physical or electronic mail, iii) wait for recipients (AEs) confirmation

i) assess manuscript and send back a review comments or recommendation to AEs through system

Associate Editor

Manuscript review comments Receive, Assess, Decision

i) manuscript review comments receipt acknowledgement send to Reviewers through phone, physical or electronic mail, ii) AEs decision based on review comments send to EIC through phone, physical or electronic mail

i) AEs decision based on review comments send back to EIC through system

Editor-in-Chief (EIC)

Manuscript review comments Receive, Assess, and Decision

i) manuscript review comments receipt acknowledgement send to AEs through phone, physical or electronic mail, ii) decision (revision, reject, accept) send to through phone, physical or electronic mail

i) EIC makes a decision (revision, reject, accept) based on review comments send to Authors through system

Authors Manuscript decision accept

i) manuscript decision (revision, reject, accept )receipt acknowledgement send to EIC through phone, physical or electronic mail, ii) re-submit revised or camera-ready manuscript through physical or electronic mail

i) re-submit revised or camera-ready manuscript through system

Table II: Steps/Tasks reduction statistics of our proposed automated journal system

ActorsApproximate Steps/Tasks

Reduced Steps/Tasks (%) Average (%)Manual Automated

Authors 4 2 50

43.33Editor-in-Chief (EIC) 8 4 50Associate Editor (AE) 5 2 40Reviewers 3 1 33.33

After all discussion, it can be said that the functionalities starting from authors to administrators are fully automated. Interestingly, we have found that the number of article submissions is increased around 20 percent on average after implementing the new automated system. The new system takes less time to complete article processing compared with the old one. The feature of tracking whether the editor or reviewer has completed the assigned task or not, allows editor in chiefs to send a gentle reminder to the concerned person. This feature facilitates the speedy completion of article processing. The inclusion of a Turnitin module in this system helps reviewers to check the uniqueness of research before starting the final evaluation. If the similarity score lies under a certain threshold, then reviewers carry out further processing. Authors can submit and publish their articles without facing any hurdle. The entire processing from submission to publication is organized concisely and logically which makes the system robust. The editor in chief can monitor every piece of the action through this

website. The automation of the editorial process makes the system faster to receive, evaluate, and publish articles. The developed system have enabled us to publish manuscript with better quality due to multiple revisions. Here, the internal management processes are subdivided into layers that ensures distributed, parallel, and transparent way of publications. The logical design and implementation of the reviewer side ensure parity during evaluation that helps to uphold the quality of the journal. The database of the system is designed deliberately which makes the system more protective against any threats from inside or outside.

5. CONCLUSION

Journal management systems are used by researchers and journal managers to submit and process research articles respectively. The automation of journal management



systems lessens the processing time and facilities to make a quick decision after evaluation. Here, we developed an automated journal management system using PHP, Laravel, JavaScript, and MySQL. The number of submissions is increased by around 20 percent after installing the new system. We used PHP to design the system as it provides more security than the other web development languages. Users cannot access PHP codes directly since it is converted to HTML during browsing. The use of Laravel makes the system more secure as it keeps business logic and presentation logic separately. The user interface was designed using JavaScript that makes the system more lively and interactive. The system is light-weight as MySQL was used to store voluminous data. The database was organized deliberately which protects stored data from illegal access. The functionalities of each user like authors, editor in chiefs, editors, reviewers, and administrators are conducted through the journal website that makes the system fully automated. Here, authors can submit and trace articles through the website, editor in chiefs can supervise the submitted papers in the house, editors can assign reviewers and monitor evaluation progress in online, reviewers can access and evaluate the assigned articles through the journal website, all back-end managements are done by administrators using the journal website. The journal management system was designed to fit for carrying double-blind peer-review that hides the information of authors and reviewers from each other.

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a time saving mvc-based automated journal management

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