Use FastPass Backend as Basis to Auto-Blind Double Anon Manuscripts
We've recently started a push to encourage authors to submit their manuscript using FastPass, which is a feature of S1M Optima. FastPass submission is supposed to enable the auto-population of certain steps of the S1M submission form (type title abstract; co-authors; keywords) if the manuscript file has been formatted correctly and prepared using EndNote. This got me thinking: if S1M can be configured to recognise and process these key aspects of the metadata, pulling them from the manuscript and populating the submission form with them, then with a bit of work could the same technology not be repurposed and upgraded to auto-remove the identifying elements - names, institutions etc - from the PDF, enabling automatic blinding for review purposes, whilst removing all the current complexity from the export process at the other end. The submission of double anonymous manuscripts and the export of papers put through a double blind peer review process still creates a disproportionate amount of admin and user support work here - authors and editors do not find either of these ScholarOne workflows intuitive. Surely in this age of machine reading it's time you finally look to address this with technology.
