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LIBRARY SUPPORT FOR RESEARCHERS
OPEN JOURNAL SYSTEM (OJS)
WHAT IS OJS?
OJS is an open access-publishing platform for peer-reviewed scholarly journals. It is specifically designed to facilitate the blind peer-review process. University of Manitoba faculty members, staff, and students may host their journals using OJS.
WHY USE OJS?
(1) Built-in blind peer-reviewed workflow. OJS is structured to guide submissions through the peer-review process.
(2) High degree of automation. OJS will provide automatic and customisable notifications to guide authors, reviewers, and editors through every step of the publication process.
(3) Pre-existing roles and functionality for authors, reviewers, editors, and journal managers. This facilitates the workflow and task delegation for publication.
(4) Facilitates journal indexing by open journal directories (e.g., DOAJ). While OJS does not guarantee that your journal will be indexed by directories, it is structured to meet many of the indexing requirements of such directories, including making your journal’s peer-review process explicit and having your journal generate the appropriate metadata (e.g., ISSN and DOIs).
(5) Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Crossref Plugin. OJS automatically automatically assigns DOI suffixes if you link your journal to your Crossref account and DOI prefix.There is also an automatic export function, which allows your metadata, included cited works, to be exported to Crossref, giving you more visibility online.
Considerations
(1) OJS has a fairly rigid structure that works most effectively if you use it for your entire publishing workflow. If you plan on managing your submissions outside of OJS (e.g., via email), OJS can be cumbersome.
(2) OJS requires some technical expertise to customize the functionality, such as using plugins, and design (e.g., CSS).
GETTING STARTED
If you wish to start a project using OJS (e.g., journal or digital humanities project), please contact Dom Taylor, Philosophy & Religion Librarian, to set up a meeting. Once we have determined together that OJS is a good fit with your project, we will draft a memorandum of understanding to outline the support Universities of Manitoba Libraries is able to provide.
(1) A title and description of your project.
(2) Associated faculty and department.
(3) A project champion and contact person.
(4) An idea of who will be involved in the project (e.g., editors, peer-reviews, copy editors, and layout editors).
(5) An ISSN (if you are planning on making your publication continuous and widely available)
HOW WE SUPPORT YOUR OJS PROJECT
2 WAYS OF USING OJS
(1) As a blind peer-review publication workflow manager and publishing platform
OJS is specifically designed to manage the peer-review publishing process. It features automatic notifications for users, including journal managers, and peer reviewers and mechanisms to keep track of multiple version of the same document. Using OJS in this way ensures that you follow a clear and consistent procedure for your publication process. Finally, OJS acts as a platform by which users can access your content.
(2) As publishing platform only
As a journal manager or someone spearheading a journal’s publication process, you may wish to manage the editing workflow through your own means (e.g., tracking the editing process through e-mail rather than OJS’ tools). Luckily, there are a few handy features that will allow you to upload final drafts of articles (see: QuickSubmit)
TYPES OF PROJECTS THAT WOULD FIT WELL WITH OJS
The primary function of OJS is to facilitate the publication of academic peer-reviewed journals. However, it can also be used for a variety of other projects, including:
(1) Digital humanities projects.
For example: a graduate course could incorporate the publication of a “one time” journal issue relating to the class topic. Doing this would allow students to develop their ideas regarding the given topic while becoming familiar with the publication process both as an author and an editor.
(2) Newsletters and student publications.
For example: departmental/college student associations can use OJS to publish and archive their newsletters in a manner that facilitates uniformity and preservation standards.
Example journals
(1) Summer Academe: A Journal of Higher Education (hosted by the University of Manitoba).
(2) Archivaria (Canadian Archival Studies Journal)
RESOURCES
IMPORTANT LINKS
