IJARCS
Academic Research & Journal Publishing Platform
A research journal and academic publishing platform supporting manuscript submission, double-blind peer review, editorial workflows, research archiving, publication management, and scholarly document discovery.
01 / CONTEXT
The problem
Academic publishing involves multiple roles with different permissions and responsibilities. Authors, reviewers, associate editors, and editors-in-chief must be able to collaborate on manuscripts without compromising reviewer anonymity or exposing restricted metadata.
02 / APPROACH
How I built it
Manuscripts move through a controlled state machine. Authorization policies determine which roles can access or modify each part of the workflow, while background workers handle document sanitization, watermarking, and notifications.
03 / CONSTRAINTS
What had to hold
Double-blind review requirements Strict role segmentation Manuscript confidentiality Document revision lifecycle Immutable workflow auditing Large document collections
04 / OBJECTIVES
Definition of done
• Digitize manuscript submission • Manage peer review • Automate reviewer assignments and notifications • Support editorial decisions • Archive published research • Provide citation-friendly research access
05 / THE SYSTEM
Architecture
Manuscript state machine Submission, review, revision, and editorial decisions are modeled as controlled state transitions. Role-based authorization Authors, reviewers, associate editors, and editors receive distinct access privileges. Reviewer anonymization Author metadata is stripped from reviewer-facing manuscript copies. Background document processing Document sanitization and watermarking execute asynchronously. Editorial notification system Publication workflow events trigger automated email communications.
06 / DECISIONS
Key decisions
Use a manuscript state machine Why: Publishing workflows require explicit and auditable lifecycle states. Enforce authorization through policy gates Why: Role boundaries must be enforced consistently across manuscript operations. Sanitize reviewer copies Why: Double-blind review requires preventing author metadata from leaking to reviewers. Persist workflow transitions Why: Academic publishing requires high-fidelity auditing of editorial decisions.
07 / SHIPPED
Deliverables
• Manuscript submission (delivered) — Core capability of the product (see features). • Double-blind peer review (delivered) — Core capability of the product (see features). • Reviewer assignment (delivered) — Core capability of the product (see features). • Review scoring (delivered) — Core capability of the product (see features). • Revision feedback (delivered) — Core capability of the product (see features).
08 / LESSONS
What I'd keep
• Academic workflows require unusually strong auditing fidelity. • Every important review and editorial transition should be permanently traceable. • Privacy boundaries need to be enforced at the application architecture level, not merely through UI restrictions.
What changed
Hundreds papers
Submitted papers managed
to date
Multi-volume
Publication editions managed
to date
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