-> Open Journal Systems in the CARPET Catalogue
(http://www.carpet-project.net/en/catalogue/carpet/Open-Journal-Systems%20-%20OJS%20%5BPKP%5D/)
-> Open Journal Systems support forum
(http://www.carpet-project.net/en/forum/themen/ojs_ocs_omp_harvester/)
| Institutional affiliation and other indicators of the viability of the open-source project | |
| Name of system: | Open Journal Systems |
| Current version of system: | 2.1.1 |
| Tested version of system: | 2.1.1 |
| URL of project homepage: | http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs |
| Institutional affiliation: | Public Knowledge Project: University of British Columbia und Simon Fraser University |
| Age of project: | Version 1.0 released in November 2002. |
| Notes on long-term viability of project: | OJS is a subproject of the federally (Canadian) funded Public Knowledge Project, a partnership between the University of British Columbia Faculty of Education, the Simon Fraser University Library, and the Simon Fraser University Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing. The various projects of the PKP have been funded by: British Columbia Teachers Federation; International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications; Canadian Association of Research Libraries; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; International Development Research Council; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Open Society Institute, Soros Foundation; Max Bell Foundation; Government of Canada, Office of Learning Technologies. |
| Degree of deployment: | Fully developed. |
| Type of open-source license: | GNU General Public Licence 2+ |
| Technical requirements, maintenance, scalability, and documented APIs | |
| Operating system requirements: | Windows, Unix, or Linux. Unix-like OS recommended. |
| Application server requirements: | An auxiliary application server is not required. |
| Web server requirements: | Apache 1.3.2+ or 2.0.4+ or IIS 6+ (We were, however, able to install it for testing purposes under IIS 5.1 on the WinXP platform.) |
| Primary programming language: | PHP 4.2+ (IIS requires PHP 5.0+) |
| Database server requirements: | MySQL 2.23+ or PostgreSQL 7.1+ |
| Required skills: | Required skills for setup and administration include the following: Ability to set up, configure, administer, and secure a Web server, either Apache or IIS; ability to set up and configure PHP with either the MySQL or PostgreSQL connector; ability to set up and administer either the MySQL or PostgreSQL database server. |
| API: Code extensibility: | The application provides a robust plugin API. Examples of community-produced plugins include: An RSS/Atom feed plugin; a WYSIWYG editor plugin; an LDAP authentication plugin; a PubMed XML export plugin; a Google Scholar Gateway plugin; etc. Plugins are written in object-oriented PHP and typically extend one of the four provided base classes: Generic; importexport; auth; and gateways. The Open Journals Systems Technical Reference provides ample instruction and examples on how to write plugins for the application. |
| Submission, peer review management, and administrative functions | |
| Support for multiple, discrete publications: | Yes, multiple publications (journals, and issues of those journals) are supported. |
| Multiple administrative roles: | Yes, the application provides multiple administrative roles. These roles include: Author; OJS Superuser; Journal Manager; Editor; Section Editor; Copy Editor; Layout Editor; Proofreader. |
| Administrative roles configurable: | The provided administrative roles do not appear to be configurable, i.e., there does not appear to be any way to add an administrative role to the system. That said, the administrative roles provided appear to be comprehensive and very well thought out. |
| Submission into system initiated by authors: | Submissions are author-initiated, and file uploading is done via the application. Metadata is supplied by the author at the time of submission. Resubmissions can occur at the editor's request. |
| Metadata fields configurable: | Metadata fields in this application do not appear to be configurable, e.g., they cannot be added to. |
| Editorial workflow configurable per publication: | While the workflow is not configurable, a lot of thought was put in to the hardcoded workflow and editorial processes hardcoded into this application. The main OJS documentation ("OJS in Ten Minutes") provides a very nice chart of the workflow modeled by the OJS application. This chart nicely illustrates the movement of a submission through the workflow process and the various interactions between authors, editors, reviewers, and other editoral staff along the way. |
| Stylesheets, customizable look and feel per publication: | The Journal Manager controls the look and feel of each individual journal via stylesheets and custom HTML header and footer files. |
| Access, formats, and electronic commerce functions | |
| Internationalization support: | The backend database must support UTF-8 (Unicode) encoding in order for special characters to be stored, retrieved, and then displayed properly. The en_US locale is installed by default. Locale files for the following also ship with the default configuration and can be activated after initial installation: es_ES; fr_CA; it_IT; pt_BR; ru_RU; tr_TR. In addition to these, locale files for the following languages are currently under development: Arabic; Catalan; Chinese; Croatian; Farsi; Hindi; Norwegian; Thai; Vietnamese. |
| Output in multiple document formats: | |
| Document formats supported: | |
| Full-text search and retrieval: | Full-text indexing is supported for the following file formats: Text; RTF; Microsoft Word; PDF; Postscript. |
| Authentication mechanisms: | Authentication can occur against either the backend database or against an external LDAP server. The plugin for LDAP authentication is provided with the default OJS software package. |
| Subscription services: | There is an entire administrative module to manage subscription services per individual journal that can be activated by the Journal Manager. Such subscription-related attributes as Subscription Type (e.g., individual or institutional); Subscription Policies; Subscription Expiry Reminders; and Delayed Open Access for Subscription Journals are included. Journal Managers are provided an administrative interface for created subscriptions. This interface includes such things as Subscription Type; start and end dates; Membership requirements of the subscribing party; Domain, if access to subscribed publications are to be restricted by domain; and IP ranges, if access to subscribed publications are to be restricted by IP range. |
| Summary data | |
| Strengths: | Easy installation. Platform independent. Excellent and comprehensive documentation. Well-implemented plugin support. Well-thought-out workflow and administrative roles. Solid support for internationalization via UTF-8 encoding and locale files. |
| Weaknesses: | It would be nice if an authentication plugin would be provided to allow Shibboleth authentication as well as authentication against other single sign-on utilities, e.g., CAS; WebAuth; SiteMinder. |