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Table of Contents
Understand your resource or project states
HORTUS uses a moderated publication workflow so that a resource or project can move from an early idea to a community-ready output in a clear, supportive, and transparent way. For young researchers, this is especially valuable: the platform does not assume that a first version is already complete. Instead, it offers a guided path in which you can draft, improve, submit, receive feedback, revise, and publish with greater confidence. In this sense, moderation is not only a control step; it is also a way to support learning, improve quality, and strengthen the visibility and reuse of your work. The workflow also benefits the wider Religious Studies research community. By making each stage explicit, HORTUS helps ensure that published resources and project pages are better documented, more coherent, and more useful for others to discover, understand, cite, and reuse. A contribution can therefore grow progressively: it starts as a personal draft, becomes a reviewed submission, and eventually becomes a discoverable scholarly asset that enriches the shared research environment.
How to read the diagram.
A resource or project typically starts in Draft when it is first created and saved. When the contributor considers it ready for review, it moves to Waiting for approval. After moderation, it can either be Published or Rejected. If rejected, it can be sent back for changes and improved as a draft before being submitted again. A published item can also be edited as a new version, returning temporarily to draft so that updates can be prepared safely before republication. Please note that deletion of the item is not permitted during the intermediate “Waiting for approval” phase; the item can only be deleted after its status has changed to “Published” or “Rejected” (or while it is still in Draft).This lifecycle is designed to protect both the researcher and the community: it gives contributors a safer and more supportive path toward publication, while ensuring that the materials shared in HORTUS are clearer, more reliable, and more reusable for the broader field of Religious Studies.
Resource and Project States
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | The record is still in the preparation phase. You can continue editing text, metadata, files, links, and other supporting information before submitting it. |
| Waiting for approval | The record has been submitted for moderation and is no longer only a personal working draft. A moderator now needs to review it before it can move forward. |
| Rejected | The submission has been reviewed, but it requires corrections, additions, or improvements before publication. This status should be understood as part of an iterative improvement process, not as a failure. |
| Published | The item has been approved and is now discoverable in HORTUS. At this stage it can enter dissemination, sharing, export, citation, and reuse workflows. |
| Deleted | The item has been removed from the active workflow. Deletion can occur at different stages when the record should no longer remain in the platform. |
How to read the lifecycle
- Draft → internal work
- Pending → under review
- Approved → ready
- Published → visible and usable
Some systems may separate Approved and Published stages.