 | |
 OJS version 3 | |
| Developer(s) | Public Knowledge Project  |
|---|---|
| Repository | |
| Platform | PHP |
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Type | Open access publishing |
| License | GNU General Public License |
| Website | http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs |
Open Journal Systems, also known as OJS, is an open source and free software for the management of peer-reviewed academic journals, created by the Public Knowledge Project, and released under the GNU General Public License. [1]
Open Journal Systems (OJS) was conceived to facilitate the development of open access, peer-reviewed publishing, providing the technical infrastructure for the presentation of journal articles along with an editorial-management workflow, including article submission, peer-review, and indexing. OJS relies upon individuals fulfilling different roles, such as journal manager, editor, reviewer, author, and reader. It has a module that supports subscription journals. [2] [3] [4]
Like other community-based projects such as WordPress, the software has a plugin architecture, which allows new features to be integrated without changing its core codebase. Available plugins facilitate indexing in Google Scholar and PubMed Central, publishing RSS/Atom web syndication feeds, and providing COUNTER statistics about online usage, [5] several plugins are curated and directly available for download through its plugin gallery interface. OJS is also LOCKSS-compliant, which helps ensure ongoing access to journal contents. Third-party plugins include Reading Tools, [6] which point readers to related studies, media stories, and policy documents in open access databases, the Better Password plugin, which forces the users to use strong passwords, and many others freely available in GitHub. OJS also provides custom themes, which might be added to the installation through its plugin gallery and a demo installation to experiment its features.
OJS is currently in its 3.4.0-7 version, released on August 23, 2024. Its first version was originally released in 2001. The software possesses an open well defined development roadmap and a set of milestones.
The software is written in PHP, currently supports two databases, MySQL/MariaDB and PostgreSQL, and can be hosted on a Unix-like or Windows web server.
| Version | Supported | End of Life |
|---|---|---|
| 3.4.x | Active development | |
| 3.3.x | Active maintenance | |
| 3.2.x | Security only | |
| 3.1.x | Security only; upgrade recommended | |
| 3.0.x | Security only; upgrade recommended | |
| 2.x | Not supported | 2021 |
| 1.x | Not supported | 2005 (approx.) |
Note: OJS 2 reached its end of life in 2021, its latest release was the version 2.4.8-5, released in May 2019. [7] When upgrading from the version 2.x to 3.x, some care must be taken given that several features have been added and removed, especially if the installation has hand-made customizations. [8]
As of version 3.3.0, the software has been translated into 50 languages: Arabic, Armenian, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Gaelic, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Kurdish, Macedonian, Malay, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese, with many additional languages (including Uzbek, Urdu, Sinhala, Lithuanian, Korean, and Mongolian) in development. Translations are created and maintained by the user community. [9]
PKP maintains an extensive documentation hub where users can find documentation about all of its systems. The documentation covers basic software usage, migration instructions, development practices, accessibility, video tutorials and the content has been translated partially into other languages. [10] PKP also provides extensive documentation on governance and policies. [11]
A user community has developed around the software, with active participants, and enhancements being contributed to the project from the Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology (IBICT), [12] [ failed verification ] the Journal of Medical Internet Research , [13] and others. A growing body of publications and documentation [14] is available on the project's website.
As of mid-2021, OJS was being used by at least 25,000 journals worldwide. [15] A daily updated map showing the location of these journals is also available on PKP's website. [16] A survey in 2010 found that about half were in the developing world. [17]
The Public Knowledge Project is also collaborating with the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to develop scholarly research portals in Africa, [18] Bangladesh, [19] Nepal, [20] and Vietnam. [21] In Venezuela, at least 32 independent organizations, public and private universities publish 230 journals using this platform. [22]
OJS, as well as the Érudit publishing system, [23] is being used in the Synergies project, [24] creating a scholarly portal for Canadian social sciences and humanities research. OJS is also being used for research portals in Brazil, [25] Spain, Italy, [26] and Greece. [27]
OJS hosting service is offered for a fee by the PKP|Publishing Services (PKP-operated Publishing Services), [28] [29] as well as a variety of third-party commercial and non-commercial service providers not affiliated with PKP. [30]
PKP has also released a Docker container in GitHub, which may be helpful to spin-up an OJS instance without having to deal with the web server, database and PHP installation. The container is still in beta, so it should be used only for testing purposes.
Wiki software is collaborative software that runs a wiki, which allows the users to create and collaboratively edit pages or entries via a web browser. A wiki system is usually a web application that runs on one or more web servers. The content, including previous revisions, is usually stored in either a file system or a database. Wikis are a type of web content management system, and the most commonly supported off-the-shelf software that web hosting facilities offer.
WordPress is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, mailing lists and Internet forum, media galleries, membership sites, learning management systems, and online stores. Available as free and open-source software, WordPress is among the most popular content management systems – it was used by 43.1% of the top 10 million websites as of December 2023.
DokuWiki is an open source wiki application licensed under GPLv2 and written in the PHP programming language. It works on plain text files and thus does not need a database. Its syntax is similar to the one used by MediaWiki. It is often recommended as a more lightweight, easier to customize alternative to MediaWiki. The 'Doku' in DokuWiki is short for Dokumentation which in German means documentation.
An information commons is an information system, such as a physical library or online community, that exists to produce, conserve, and preserve information for current and future generations. Wikipedia could be considered to be an information commons to the extent that it produces and preserves information through current versions of articles and histories. Other examples of an information commons include Creative Commons.
The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management and improved support for teaching and research. In collaboration with the ten University of California Libraries and other partners, CDL assembled one of the world's largest digital research libraries. CDL facilitates the licensing of online materials and develops shared services used throughout the UC system. Building on the foundations of the Melvyl Catalog, CDL has developed one of the largest online library catalogs in the country and works in partnership with the UC campuses to bring the treasures of California's libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations to the world. CDL continues to explore how services such as digital curation, scholarly publishing, archiving and preservation support research throughout the information lifecycle.
The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is a non-profit research initiative that is focused on the importance of making the results of publicly funded research freely available through open access policies, and on developing strategies for making this possible. It is a partnership between the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing at Simon Fraser University, the University of Pittsburgh, Ontario Council of University Libraries, the California Digital Library and the School of Education at Stanford University. It seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality of academic research through the development of innovative online environments.
John Willinsky is a Canadian educator, activist, and author. Willinsky is currently on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Education where he is the Khosla Family Professor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and directs the Public Knowledge Project.
National Centre for Science Information (NCSI) was the information centre of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, that provided electronic information services to the Institute academic community. The Centre also undertook sponsored R&D projects and conducted a training programme on Information and Knowledge Management. NCSI was established in 1983, as a University Grants Commission (India) Inter-University Centre (IUC). Formerly, as UGC-IUC for science information, NCSI provided national level current awareness services to researchers in Indian universities during 1984 to 2002.
MadCap Software is an American computer software firm headquartered in San Diego, California that creates help authoring tools and solutions for technical writers and documentation teams. Several principal managers, software engineers, and support personnel were recruited from rival firms, such as Adobe Systems and Macromedia, to found MadCap Software. MadCap's authoring tools are all based on xHTML.
African Journals OnLine (AJOL) is a South African non-profit organization, that lies in the headquarters of Grahamstown.It is dedicated to improving the online visibility and access to the published scholarly research of African-based academics. By using the internet as a gateway, AJOL aims to enhance conditions for African learning as well as African development.
An open-access mandate is a policy adopted by a research institution, research funder, or government which requires or recommends researchers—usually university faculty or research staff and/or research grant recipients—to make their published, peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers open access (1) by self-archiving their final, peer-reviewed drafts in a freely accessible institutional repository or disciplinary repository or (2) by publishing them in an open-access journal or both.
D-Scribe Digital Publishing is an open access electronic publishing program of the University Library System (ULS) of the University of Pittsburgh. It comprises over 100 thematic collections that together contain over 100,000 digital objects. This content, most of which is available through open access, includes both digitized versions of materials from the collections of the University of Pittsburgh and other local institutions as well as original 'born-electronic' content actively contributed by scholars worldwide. D-Scribe includes such items as photographs, maps, books, journal articles, dissertations, government documents, and technical reports, along with over 745 previously out-of-print titles published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The digital publishing efforts of the University Library System began in 1998 and have won praise for their innovation from the leadership at the Association of Research Libraries and peer institutions.
Orthanc is a standalone DICOM server. It is designed to improve the DICOM flows in hospitals and to support research about the automated analysis of medical images. Orthanc lets its users focus on the content of the DICOM files, hiding the complexity of the DICOM format and of the DICOM protocol. It is licensed under the GPLv3.
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The following is a timeline of the international movement for open access to scholarly communication.
In Canada the Institutes of Health Research effected a policy of open access in 2008, which in 2015 expanded to include the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The Public Knowledge Project began in 1998 at University of British Columbia. Notable Canadian advocates for open access include Leslie Chan, Jean-Claude Guédon, Stevan Harnad, Heather Morrison, and John Willinsky.
The idea and practise of providing free online access to journal articles began at least a decade before the term "open access" was formally coined. Computer scientists had been self-archiving in anonymous ftp archives since the 1970s and physicists had been self-archiving in arXiv since the 1990s. The Subversive Proposal to generalize the practice was posted in 1994.
The National Documentation Centre is a Greek public organisation that promotes knowledge, research, innovation and digital transformation. It was established in 1980 with funding from the United Nations Development Programme with the aim to strengthen the collection and distribution of research-related material, and to ensure full accessibility to it. It has been designated as a National Scientific Infrastructure, a National Authority of the Hellenic Statistical System, and National Contact Point for European Research and Innovation Programmes. Since August 2019, it has been established as a discrete public-interest legal entity under private law, and is supervised by the Ministry of Digital Governance. The management bodies of EKT are the Administrative Board and the Director who, since 2013, has been Dr. Evi Sachini.
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