Using OJS to align your journal with DOAJ criteria.

1. Using OJS to manage &
publish your online Open
Access journal
Presented by
Ina Smith DOAJ Ambassador ina@doaj.org

2. Agenda
• Open Journal Systems (OJS)
• Open Source Software
• Installing OJS & creating a journal
• Setting up a journal
• Workflow
• Publishing an issue

3. “Scholars need the means to launch a new
generation of journals committed to Open Access,
and to help existing journals that elect to make the
transition to Open Access.”
Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002

4. Open Journal Systems (OJS)
• Journal management & publishing system, web site
– all in one
• Licensed as Open Source Software (OS) (GNU
General Public License)
• Developed by Public Knowledge Project (PKP) &
Simon Fraser University
• Community of developers
• Download and install on local server
https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/
• Version 3.0 in August/September 2016

5. Benefits of OJS
• Installed locally and locally controlled
• Online submission and management of all content
• Central archive – documentation, communication etc
• Comprehensive indexing of journal content
• Reading tools for content
• Plugins (additional tools)
• Email notifications and commenting options
• Builds capacity, reduces dependency
• Allows for flexible publishing frequency
• Editors configure requirements, sections, review
process

6. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl

7. http://jmhs.cmsny.org/index.php/jmhs

8. http://sensoria.swinburne.edu.au/index.php/sensoria

9. http://www.ethicsandglobalpolitics.net/index.php/egp

10. http://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/

11. http://journals.assaf.org.za/sacq

12. http://journals.assaf.org.za

13. https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/ojs-usage/ojs-map/

14. Open Source Software (OSS)(1)
• Developers highly skilled, self-motivated, peer
recognition
• Clean design, reliability, maintainability, standards,
interoperability
• Community approach
• Code available & transparent – no clever salesperson
• No purchase, but resources to install, customize,
maintain
• Versions released – keep to most recent stable version

15. Open Source Software (OSS)(2)
• No registration of licenses
• Less vulnerable – viruses, downtime, loss of data,
security breaches, hacking
• Self-empowerment – develop local skills – lifelong
self-learning
• OJS Base URL available to harvesters/databases
• Interoperability with systems such as ORCID,
Creative Commons, Crossref, DOAJ, Portico

16. Hosting Solutions
• Self-hosting on a server at home institution
• Self-hosting on a server in the cloud e.g. with
Hetzner https://hetzner.co.za/
• PKP/OJS Publishing Services
https://pkpservices.sfu.ca/content/journal-hosting

17. Requirements for self-hosting
• PHP 4.2.x or later (including PHP 5.x) with MySQL
or PostgreSQL support
• A database server: MySQL 4.1 or later
OR PostgreSQL 8.0 or later
• UNIX-like OS recommended (such
as Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, etc.)
• Download OJS 2.4.8-1 (.tar.gz) (18 MB)
• See https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/ojs_download/

18. Testdrive OJS
See https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/ojs_demo/

19. Creating a journal on a federated OJS

27. User Home >> Journal Manager >> Users

28. User Home >> Journal Manager >> Users >> Users Enrolled in this Journal

30. User Home >> Journal Manager >> Users >> Create New User

33. http://pkpschool.sfu.ca/becoming-an-editor/module-1/unit-5-editorial-titles-and-
positions/
Variations in editorial role:

35. Example workflow

36. 1
2
3
4
5

38. Details

45. <meta name="description" content="This academic peer-reviewed
journal is an open access journal for policy makers, practitioners, and
the research community, on crime and related issues in South Africa.">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX, FOLLOW">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-
8">

47. Policies

53. http://www.portico.org/digital-preservation/

55. Submissions

57. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

58. ArticlelevelCCL

61. Base URL: http://journals.assaf.org.za/sacq/oai

64. Management

66. Also see: Journal Management >> System Plugins >>
Public Identifier Plugins >> DOI

71. The Look

79. 1
2
3
4
5

85. http://www.youtube.com/user/PublicKnowledgeProj/

87. http://pkpschool.sfu.ca/

88. XML
• XML was designed to carry data - with focus on what
data is
• HTML was designed to display data - with focus on how
data looks
• XML tags are not predefined like HTML tags are
• It simplifies data sharing
• It simplifies data transport
• It simplifies platform changes
• It simplifies data availability
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp

89. XML OJS Parsing Service
http://pkp-udev.lib.sfu.ca/

90. Online ISSN
http://www.nlsa.ac.za/index.php/bibsa/isn-agency

91. http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeoDepositing policy

92. “Without data you are just another person with an opinion.” –
W. Edwards Deming
http://dataverse.org/

93. Referencing for authors
https://www.refme.com/

94. General email for journal

95. Thank you for
assisting with
developing
and building a
database of
quality,
peer-reviewed
Open
Access journals!