Open Journal Systems was designed to facilitate the development of open access, peer-reviewed publishing, providing the technical infrastructure not only for the online presentation of journal articles, but also an entire editorial management workflow, including: article submission, multiple rounds of 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. Like other community-based projects such as WordPress, the software has a plugin architecture, which allows new features to be integrated without changing the core code base. Available plugins facilitate indexing in Google Scholar and PubMed Central, publishing RSS/Atom web syndication feeds, and providing COUNTER statistics about online usage. OJS is also LOCKSS-compliant, which helps ensure ongoing access to journal contents. Third-party plugins include Reading Tools, which point readers to related studies, media stories, and policy documents in open access databases.
Versions
Originally released in 2001, OJS is currently in version 3.2.0-1, released in March 2020. PKP also maintains a version 2 branch, with OJS 2.4.8-5 released in May 2019. Version 2 includes some features and languages not supported in version 3. OJS is written in PHP, uses either a MariaDB or PostgreSQL database, and can be hosted on a Unix-like or Windowsweb server. OJS has been translated into many languages. As of Version 2.3, there are 17 languages with complete translations, with many additional languages in development. All translations are created and maintained by the user community.
Use
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, the Journal of Medical Internet Research, and others. A growing body of publications and documentation is available on the project web site. As of mid-2015, OJS was being used by at least 8,000 journals worldwide. A map showing the location of these journals is also available on PKP's website. A survey in 2010 found that about half were in the developing world. OJS hosting service is offered for a fee by PKP|PS, as well as a variety of third-party commercial and non-commercial service providers not affiliated with PKP. The Public Knowledge Project is also collaborating with the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications to develop scholarly research portals in Africa, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Vietnam. In Venezuela, at least 32 independent organizations, public and private universities publish 230 journals using this platform. OJS, as well as the Érudit publishing system, is being used in the Synergies project, creating a scholarly portal for Canadian social sciences and humanities research. OJS is also being used for research portals in Brazil, Spain, Italy and Greece.
