Within about 30 days of submitting a STARS report for a rating, you will receive an email from AASHE staff identifying any issues that need to be addressed before your report can be published. After this email is sent, you will have approximately 60 days to address any identified issues. It is important to complete the review and revision process within a reasonable amount of time to ensure that data in published reports align with credit timeframes and remain relevant. The following tips will help institutions move through the review and revision process quickly and efficiently.
Review and Revision Guidance
- Expect that adjustments will be needed On average, we identify 7 to 8 credits that require revision for a given report. Reports that require no changes are rare (about 1-2 percent of all submitted reports).
- Read the review results and recommendations closely – AASHE staff provide suggestions and recommendations on how to proceed for every credit that requires revision.
- Prioritize addressing review results right away – Begin resubmitting credits while the information is still fresh. You will receive a progress update from AASHE staff within 1-2 business days after you resubmit one or more credits.
- Save as “In Progress” versus “Resubmit” – If you wish to capture changes but are not ready for staff to review the credit, you can save as “In Progress”.
- Credits saved as “In Progress” will be removed from overall score calculations, so you may see a temporary drop in Overall Score. This will change once In Progress credits are saved as “Resubmit”.
- Once you have finalized the credit content, please save as “Resubmit”. AASHE staff will receive automated notifications of resubmitted credits, so there is no need to let us know that a credit is resubmitted.
- Address a credit within 1 or 2 attempts – Staff reviewers track the number of times a credit is reviewed (e.g., 1st review:.. 2nd review:..,) Our goal is to review a credit no more than two times. Please be mindful when saving as “Resubmit” and avoid resubmitting credits with minimal changes. Resubmitting credits without addressing the issues takes extra time for you as well as for AASHE reviewers, and can delay publication.
- Ask questions if you have them – You are welcome to check in with reviewers at any time to ask clarifying questions. Please respond to the Review results thread and be sure to email “stars-reviewers@aashe.org”. We usually respond within 1-2 business days. If you create a new thread or send an inquiry to a different email address, delays may be possible.
- Update conservatively – If the required information cannot be obtained from data providers, or cannot be affirmed in a way that aligns with the credit criteria, Yes responses can be updated to No, or credits can be updated to Not Pursuing. These changes may result in score or rating reductions, but are often necessary to finalize a report. The public Notes or Internal Notes fields can capture information about collecting this data for future reports.
- Consider submitting with a Reporter designation instead – If the issues requiring revision cannot be addressed, and/or you are concerned about a drop in rating, you can opt out of earning a rating, and have your report published with an unscored Reporter designation. Reports published with a Reporter designation are not subject to the same review standards.