Members, Access & Roles

Three things control who does what in a systematic review:

Set them in that order. Add the member, give them the right access, then assign them to the stages they will verify.

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Members

Members are the people who can open your systematic review. You can add anyone, inside or outside your organization, and remove them at any time.

Adding and removing members is limited to the review creator. Inside an organization workspace, workspace admins and workspace owners can do this as well.

Adding a member

1. Open your systematic review and go to the Members tab.
2. Add the email address and choose Full Access, Review, or View.
3. Send the invitation
4. The person receives an email and must accept it before they can open the systematic review.

You can also generate a view-only share link for people who only need to watch progress. Anyone who redeems the link joins as a guest with View access and appears in the member list.

Removing a member

Organization workspace members

If your systematic review sits inside an organization workspace, everyone in that workspace already has access to it. You do not need to invite them.

Their access is set automatically from their workspace role:

This is the fastest way to bring in internal team members, because access follows the workspace they already belong to.

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Access

Access determines what a member can do across the systematic review. There are three levels: Full Access, Review, and View.

"With assignment" means the member holds a role on that stage. In an AI Review, that is the verifier role, and it applies to Review members only. In a Dual Review, it is a Reviewer or Conflict Resolver role, and it applies to Full Access members too: nobody votes or resolves on a stage without being assigned to it.

Full Access

Full Access runs the systematic review end to end. These members add papers, start AI runs at every stage, edit the protocol and settings, change and confirm decisions at any stage, and export.

In an AI Review, Full Access members can confirm and override decisions without being assigned to a stage. Assignment is not a requirement for them.

In a Dual Review, screening decisions belong to the assigned reviewers and resolver only. A Full Access member who holds no role on a stage can read the papers and comment, but cannot vote or resolve conflicts there. This keeps the two-reviewer record clean: every decision was made by one of the named people.

Review

Review access is for people who take part in the review work without administrative control. They can view every stage, add papers, and export. They cannot start AI runs, edit the protocol, or change settings.

Members with Review access can change and confirm screening and extraction decisions only on the stages they are assigned to. That is what "with assignment" means in the table. Without an assignment, they can see the decisions but cannot act on them.

View

View is read-only. These members see every stage and its current state but cannot add papers, make or confirm decisions, edit anything, or export. Use View for advisors, stakeholders, and collaborators who need visibility but should not change the review.

Managing members is separate from access

No access level lets a member add people, remove people, or change anyone's access. That is why both Manage access and Manage members are No in every column, including Full Access.

Those permissions depend on who the person is, not what access they hold:

• The review creator can always manage members and access.
• Inside an organization workspace, workspace owners and workspace admins can as well.

This means you can give someone complete working control of the systematic review without handing over control of who else is on it.

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Roles

A role is a stage responsibility. Roles are what turn Review access into decision-making authority. Access says what a member is capable of; the role says which stages they are responsible for.

Which roles exist depends on the review method you chose when you created the review.

Roles in an AI Review

Paperguide AI produces a decision at each stage, and an assigned member verifies it before the systematic review moves forward. The assigned member is the verifier for that stage.

Each stage is assigned separately. One person can verify every stage, or you can split them across the team.

Roles in a Dual Review

Each screening stage has three roles instead of one verifier. Data extraction keeps its single verifier.

Rules for the screening roles:

• Every role goes to a named member. A dual review has no "anyone on the team" option.
• Reviewer 1 and Reviewer 2 must be different people.
• The conflict resolver may also be one of the reviewers.
• Both reviewers must be assigned before screening on that stage can start. The resolver can be added later.
• The people can differ between title & abstract screening and full text screening.

How Dual Review works

Who can verify a stage in an AI Review

Assigning a stage narrows who is responsible for it. Leaving it unassigned keeps it open.

Assign a stage when you want one named person accountable for it, which is what most reviews need. Leave it unassigned when anyone on the team should be able to pick up the work, which is useful for smaller reviews or when you want to share the load.

Either way, a View member can never verify a stage.

Assigning a verifier

1. Set the member's access first. Only members with Review or Full Access can be assigned. A View member is not eligible.
2. Open the systematic review settings. Stage assignments are managed in the review's settings, not in the Members tab.
3. Choose the verifier for each stage. They receive an email notification letting them know.

Assign the verifier for a stage before that stage starts. Verification is what advances the systematic review, so an unassigned stage will stall once the AI run completes.

What a verifier does

When the AI run for a stage completes, the assigned verifier works through the results:

1. Review each decision along with the evidence Paperguide AI cited for every criterion.
2. Override any decision they disagree with. For an exclusion, they select which criterion the paper failed.
3. Confirm the stage when the review is complete. This closes the stage and unlocks the next one.

Their decision is saved over the AI decision, and both are kept so the systematic review has a complete record of what the AI decided and what a human changed.

Changing an assignment

Reassign a stage at any time from the review's settings. Two things to watch:

• Moving a member to View clears all their assignments automatically.
• Removing a member from the systematic review clears their assignments too.

In both cases, the stage is left without a verifier until you assign someone new.

Replacing a reviewer in a Dual Review

Giving a reviewer role to a new person after the previous holder has already screened papers asks one question: How should the new reviewer start?

Changing the conflict resolver, or filling an empty role, asks nothing. Continue is the safer choice: the record stays complete and no work is lost.