Abstain versus recuse: what's the difference?

 

Sometimes a reviewer may wish to be excused from reviewing a particular entry if, for example, there's a conflict of interest, they are associated with the applicant in some capacity, or they are also an applicant and you don't want them reviewing their own applications.

There are two options for a reviewer to not score an application: they can abstain or be recused. Abstaining requires action from the reviewer while recusal requires action from the grant manager.

Abstain

When a Scoring score set is in use, a reviewer can choose to remove themselves from reviewing a particular application provided this option is enabled in the score set.

  1. From the Manage workspace, go to Reviewing > Settings > Score sets
  2. From the Display tab, select the Reviewers may abstain checkbox
    Reviewing abstention and conflict of interest.png
  3. Save

When this is enabled, reviewers will see an option to Abstain from reviewing with each application:

Abstain from reviewing checkbox.png

Ticking the box will disable inputting scores in the scoring criteria. If a reviewer abstains from scoring, they are not taken into account when calculating the average score (since they have not actually scored).

Recuse

A grant manager may want to remove a reviewer from reviewing a particular application or a series of applications. This can be done, by the program manager, from each individual entry or via the Manage workspace under Reviewing > Settings > Assignments. When a reviewer is recused from one or more entries, they are completely unaware and are not notified in any way. 

Important: recusing a reviewer does not prevent manual or random assignments from being created. Assignments created between a reviewer and a recused application will display as 'Recused' in the Manage workspace under Reviewing > Settings > Assignments, but will not show to the reviewer in their list view. 

Recusal via an application: Applications

  1. From the Manage workspace, go to Applications
  2. Click on an application name to view its info page
  3. From the score set matrix, click on the overflow menu to the right of the reviewer you want to recuse and then click the Recuse button
    Recuse button
Note: this method only recuses the reviewer in the selected score set. 

Recusal via Assignments: Reviewing > Settings > Assignments

  1. In the Manage workspace, go to Reviewing > Settings > Assignments
  2. Search for the reviewer you wish to recuse
    Tip: use your Advanced search options on this page to filter by category, reviewer, tag, etc. to more easily recuse reviewers in bulk.
  3. Select the checkbox associated with the application/applications where you want to recuse the reviewer.
  4. Open the Action drop-down and click the Recuse button
    Recuse in Action drop-down.png

Global recusal: Applications 

  1. From the Manage workspace, go to Applications
  2. Locate and click on the application you wish to recuse the reviewer from
  3. Open the 'Review' tab
  4. In the 'Recusals' area, click Recuse a reviewer
    Recuse a reviewer button.png
  5. Key in the name of the reviewer you wish to recuse
  6. Click Recuse

These actions will only affect the applications from which the reviewer has been recused. They can continue reviewing other applications that have been assigned to them. 

If a reviewer is recused after scoring an application, their score becomes stray and is no longer counted towards the average score.
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