IPDIMS – Paper Submission and Review Platform

A full‑stack platform for managing paper submissions, peer review, registration, and admin workflows. The monorepo contains a Node/Express API, a user‑facing React app, and an admin/reviewer React app.

Structure

• server – Express + MongoDB API (auth, submissions, registrations, admin, reviewer)
• client – User web app (React + Vite)
• admin – Admin/Reviewer web app (React + Vite)

Tech Stack

• Backend: Node.js, Express 5, Mongoose, JWT, Multer, Cloudinary, Nodemailer
• Frontend: React 19, Vite, React Router, Tailwind CSS
• Database: MongoDB

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ and npm
• MongoDB connection string
• Cloudinary account (for file uploads)
• SMTP credentials (for OTP and emails)

Install

From the repository root:

cd server && npm install
cd ../client && npm install
cd ../admin && npm install

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in each app as shown.

Server (server/.env):

PORT=4000
MONGODB_URI=<your-mongodb-uri>
JWT_SECRET=<your-jwt-secret>

# Admin login (used for /api/admin/login)
ADMIN_EMAIL=<admin-login-email>
ADMIN_PASSWORD=<admin-login-password>

# Cloudinary
CLOUDINARY_NAME=<cloudinary-cloud-name>
CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=<cloudinary-api-key>
CLOUDINARY_SECRET_KEY=<cloudinary-secret>

# SMTP for Nodemailer
EMAIL_HOST=<smtp-host>        # e.g. smtp.gmail.com
EMAIL_PORT=<smtp-port>        # e.g. 587
EMAIL_USER=<smtp-user>
EMAIL_PASS=<smtp-app-password>

Client (client/.env):

VITE_BACKEND_URL=http://localhost:4000

Admin (admin/.env):

VITE_BACKEND_URL=http://localhost:4000

Screenshots

For User

For Admin

For Reviewer

Run Locally

Backend API:

cd server
npm run server   # dev with nodemon
# or
npm start        # node server.js

User App:

cd client
npm run dev
# visit the URL printed by Vite (e.g., http://localhost:5173)

Admin/Reviewer App:

cd admin
npm run dev
# visit the URL printed by Vite (e.g., http://localhost:5174)

API Overview

Base URL: http://localhost:4000

User routes (/api/user):

• POST /signup – Send OTP to email
• POST /verify-otp – Verify OTP and issue token
• POST /login
• POST /forgot-password
• POST /reset-password
• GET /profile – requires Authorization: Bearer <token>
• POST /update-profile – multipart (optional image)
• POST /add-submission – multipart (file attachment)
• GET /my-submissions
• POST /registration – multipart (file paymentProof)

Admin routes (/api/admin):

• POST /login – returns admin token (atoken)
• POST /add-reviewer – multipart (image), auth required
• GET /all-reviewer, GET /reviewer/:id, POST /change-availability/:reviewerId
• GET /submissions, GET /submission/:id, POST /assign-submission, POST /change-submission-status, DELETE /submission/:id
• GET /users, GET /user/:id, GET /user/:id/submissions, DELETE /user/:id
• GET /registrations, GET /registration/user/:userId, DELETE /registrations/:id, PUT /mark-feedback-seen/:id
• POST /notify-author

Reviewer routes (/api/reviewer):

• POST /login – returns reviewer token (rtoken)
• GET /profile, PUT /profile
• GET /submissions, GET /submissions/:id
• POST /submissions/:id/review
• GET /dashboard

Authentication

• User: send Authorization: Bearer <token> header
• Admin: send atoken: <admin-token> header. Token is JWT of ADMIN_EMAIL + ADMIN_PASSWORD signed with JWT_SECRET.
• Reviewer: send rtoken: <reviewer-token> header

File Uploads

• Uses Multer to parse multipart form data
• Files are uploaded to Cloudinary
  • Submissions: stored as resource_type: raw (PDF/doc/zip)
  • Profile images: stored as resource_type: image

Email & OTP

• Nodemailer sends OTP for signup and password reset using the SMTP settings from server/.env.

Scripts

• Server: npm run server (dev), npm start (prod)
• Client/Admin: npm run dev, npm run build, npm run preview

Production Notes

• Build frontends: run npm run build in client and admin and deploy the static assets
• Run the API with a process manager (e.g., PM2) and configure all environment variables
• Put the API behind a reverse proxy (Nginx/Apache) and enable HTTPS

License

The server package declares ISC. Adjust or add a project-wide license if needed.