Getting Started With OJS

Introduction to Open Journal Systems (OJS)

What is OJS?

“Is a journal management and publishing system that has been developed by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) through its federally funded efforts to expand and improve access to research” (http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/).

OJS assists the user with each step of the refereed publishing process. OJS supports each step of the submission, review, editing, formatting, publication, and indexing processes. Furthermore, OJS is an open source software made freely available to journals and currently supports over thirty languages. OJS offers journals the option of considering online open access publishing, but also supports subscription-based or partial-subscription publication models.

What is PKP?

“PKP is a multi-university initiative developing (free) open source software and conducting research to improve the quality and reach of scholarly publishing” (http://pkp.sfu.ca/).

PKP has two institutional anchors, Stanford University and Simon Fraser University Library, and four major development partners, California Digital Library, Ontario Council of University Libraries, University of British Columbia Libraries, and University of Pittsburgh Libraries.

In addition to Open Journal Systems, PKP projects include: Open Conference Systems, Open Monograph Press, and Open Harvester Systems.

For a quick video introduction to OJS and PKP, check this video from PKP’s “OJS for Journal Managers” course: Introduction to PKP and OJS.

OJS at Northeastern University?

Open Journal System is an open source journal publishing system supported by Northeastern University Libraries. With Open Journal System, users can manage many aspects of the serial publishing workflow, including managing submissions, editing and indexing content, maintaining subscriptions, among others.

Northeastern Libraries’ instance of Open Journal System is still in the development phase. If you would like more information about an anticipated start date, please contact us by filling out the form located here.

Resource List

There are quite a few resources that can guide a user through the various steps of using and managing an OJS installation. A more comprehensive list is in development, but these resources will be invaluable to users interested in using OJS.

User Roles

“OJS uses a comprehensive roles system to divide work between users, assign workflows, and limit access to different parts of the system” (Roles in OJS). Users of OJS can be assigned multiple roles within the same journal or assigned different roles for multiple journals within the same installation. Please note that for many journals Editors or Section Editors often fill the roles of Copyeditors, Layout Editors, and/or Proofreaders depending on the individual journal’s task assignment and policies directing workflow.

On this page, we will provide a brief description of the responsibilities and capabilities of the various user roles. For a more detailed description of the user roles in OJS please consult the OJS User Guide. Wherever available, links will be provided to the appropriate chapters in the User Guide for a given user role.

Journal Manager: The Journal Manager is responsible for setting up the journal website, configuring system options, and managing user accounts. The Journal Manager also assigns roles to users, can create new journal sections, edit review forms and default emails, manage Reading Tools, configure and activate OJS plugins, and view Statistics and Reports for the journal. For more information on the Journal Manager, please consult Chapter 4: Journal Management.

Editor: The Editor is responsible for overseeing the entire submission, review, editing, and publishing process. Working with the Journal Manager, the Editor often establishes the policies and procedures for the journal. The Editor often assigns new submissions to a Section Editor, who oversees the review process and editing (copyediting, layout editing, and proofreading). The Editor also creates the journal issues, schedules submissions for publication, arranges the Table of Contents, and publishes the issue. For more information on the Editor, please consult Chapter 6: Editors.

Section Editor: The Section Editor oversees the review and editing process for submissions that are assigned to them by the Editor. Depending on your journal’s task assignment, Section Editors might also assume the roles of Copyeditor, Layout Editor, and/or Proofreader. For more information on the Section Editor, please consult Chapter 7: Section Editors.

Copyeditor: The Copyeditor edits submissions to improve grammar and clarity, works with authors to ensure everything is in place, ensures strict adherence to the journal's bibliographic and textual style, and produces a clean, edited copy for the Layout Editor to turn into the galleys that will be in the published format of the journal. For more information on the Copyeditor, please consult Chapter 9: Copyeditors.

Layout Editor: The Layout Editor transforms the copyedited versions of submissions into galleys in HTML, PDF, PS, etc. -- files which the journal has elected to use for electronic publication. Please note that OJS does not have an internal mechanism for document conversion, so the Layout Editor must have access to and be able to use a third-party software for document conversion and styling. For more information on the Layout Editor, please consult Chapter 10: Layout Editors.

Proofreader: The Proofreaders carefully reads through the galley file, produced by the Layout Editor, noting typographical and formatting errors for the Layout Editor to correct before publication. For more information on the Proofreader, please consult Chapter 11: Proofreaders.

Author: Authors submit their work to the journal directly through the journals website. Authors upload their submission file, provide metadata and/or indexing information, and can upload supplementary files to accompany their submission. By logging in to the journal website, Authors can track their submission through and participate in the review and editorial process. For more information on the Author, please consult Chapter 5: Authors.

Reviewer: The Reviewer is selected by the Section Editor to review a submission. Reviewers are asked to submit reviews to the journal's web site and are able to upload attachments for the use of the Editor and Author. For more information on the Reviewer, please consult Chapter 8: Reviewers.

Reader: The Reader role is the simplest role in OJS, and has the fewest capabilities. Readers include both subscribers for journals for which access is subscription-based, and readers who choose to register for open access journals. Registered Readers receive a notification email with the publication of each issue, which includes the Table of Contents for that particular issue. For more information on the Reader, please consult Chapter 12: Readers.

Subscription Manager: The Subscription Manager manages the journal's subscriptions and subscription types, and can also configure where and how payments are handled within the system. This role is only available when a journal has activated subscriptions in OJS. For more information on subscriptions, please consult section 2.12 of the OJS User Guide: Subscriptions.

Editorial and Publishing Workflow

PKP has produced a very helpful chart detailing the Editorial Workflow in OJS. For more information about the workflow consult the OJS User Guide.

Creating and Setting Up Your Journal

Creating a New Journal

Creating a new journal in OJS is a fairly simple process but only the Site Administrator has permission to do so. If you are interested in creating a new journal but are not the Site Administrator, please contact them.

Log-in to your OJS installation as Site Administrator. Then click “User Home” in the navigation bar. After that click the “Site Administrator” link.
From the Site Administrator page, click “Hosted Journals” under the heading “Site Management.”
Clicking “Hosted Journals” will direct you to a list of all the Journals already created for your OJS installation. To create a new journal, just click the “Create Journal” link:
You will then be prompted to fill out a few main fields in order to create this journal. The majority of the Journal setup will be the responsibility of the Journal Manager, not the Site Administrator, but to create the Journal one must fill out the “Journal Title,” “Journal Description,” “Path,” and choose whether or not the new journal will be publicly viewable. Only the “Journal Title” and “Path” are required.
Once you have filled the necessary fields, click “Save,” and the new Journal will be created with you (the Site Administrator) automatically enrolled as its the Journal Manager. From the Journal Manager role for this new journal, you can then enroll users into the new journal, assign appropriate user roles, and begin the Setup process.

Setting Up Your Journal

Once a journal has been created by the Site Administrator, the Journal Manager can begin the 5-Step process for setting up a new journal. There are two easy ways to navigate to the Setup page. Sign in to an account that has been assigned the Journal Manager role, and click on “User Home” in the navigation bar. There is a quick link to “Setup” on the User Home screen next to “Journal Manager.” Alternatively, if one clicks the “Journal Manager” link, one can choose “Setup” on the next page.

For a more detailed look at the 5-Step Setup Process in OJS, consult our Journal Setup Guide.

Managing Users and Creating Accounts

OJS supports multiple ways for creating user accounts. Depending on your journal’s registration settings (Step 4.3 Management, Journal Setup) some users (Readers, Reviewers, Authors) can self-register for your journal content or you may require the Journal Manager to create and register each user account. This guide will walk you through creating a new user as the Journal Manager, assigning roles to users as Journal Manager, merging multiple user accounts into one account, and the self-registration process.

Creating a New User

Log in as Journal Manager and click “User Home” in the navigation bar. From “User Home” click on “Journal Manager” to open up Journal Manager admin options. Under the “Users” headline, click “Create New User” to begin setting up the account:
Clicking “Create New User” will direct you to a simple form where you can input information about the user you are creating. In this form you can input personal information, create a username, assign a password, assign a user role, and fill in user profile information (E.g., Affiliation, Reviewing Interests, Bio Statement).
The only required fields here are First Name, Last Name, Username, Password, and Email Address. OJS also has an option for generating a random password, if desired. You can also select options to send a welcome email to new users with the assigned username and password and/or require users to change their password when first logging in. It is important to note that only one account can be registered to an email address.
When you have filled in the required fields and any additional information you wish to include scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Save”. If you are creating multiple accounts in one sitting there is also an option to “Save and Create Another.” If you selected the “Send the user a welcome email containing their username and password” option, the user will receive an automated email after clicking save. The user can then sign in and edit or input additional information for their user profile by logging in and navigating to “User Home.”

Assigning User Roles

The Journal Manager is also responsible for assigning user roles to registered accounts. After creating an account, whether self-registered or created by the Journal Manager, the Journal manager can enroll users into desired user roles. Log in as the Journal Manager, navigate to the “User Home” page, and click “Journal Manager” for admin options.
Under “Users”, click “Enroll a User from this Site in this Journal.” This will direct you to a page called “Enrollment,” which shows a list of all user accounts registered to the site.
To enroll a user to a new role, simply check which user or users you wish to assign to a given role. Then, using the drop-down menu for “Enroll user as” select the appropriate role. These options change depending on whether you decided to create Copyeditor, Layout Editor, and/Proofreader roles or assign these tasks to Editors and Section Editors (4.5-4.7 Management, Journal Setup). When you have selected the desired user and user role, click “Enroll Selected Users” to make the change.

Merging User Accounts

Sometimes a user might create multiple accounts for an OJS installation (or a user might self-register when the Journal Manager has already created an account for the user). To resolve this, OJS allows the Journal Manager to easily merge user accounts. After logging in as the Journal Manager, navigate to “User Home” and click “Journal Manager.” Next, click the “Merge Users” link under “Users.” This will take you to a list of all users assigned to the journal. To merge users, simply click the two accounts you want to merge and click “Merge Users”. The account(s) selected first will be deleted and any submissions, assignments, etc. will be attributed to the second account.

User Self-Registration

Depending on the Registration Settings chosen by the Journal Manager in Step 4.3 Management, Journal Setup, Readers, Reviewers, and/or Authors may be able to self-register for a journal website. If you are unsure whether or not the journal supports self-registration, please contact the journal’s Primary Contact (listed on the “About the Journal” page).

Navigate to your desired journal’s homepage and click “Register” in the navigation bar. This will direct you to a registration form where you can input your user information. In this form you can input personal information, create a username, create a password, fill in your user profile information (E.g., Affiliation, Reviewing Interests, Bio Statement), and select your desired user role. The journal’s “Privacy Statement” will appear at the bottom of the page after the registration form.
The only required fields here are First Name, Last Name, Username, Password, and Email Address. You may also be required to fill in a “Validation” field if the journal has Captcha enabled. Simply enter the text displayed in the Captcha image box in this field. OJS also has an option for generating a random password, if desired.
When you have filled in all the required fields, scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Register.” User information can be edited, changed, or added by signing in, navigating to “User Home”, and clicking “Edit My Profile.”

Designing your Journal Site

Theme Options

OJS supports a several preset themes that will change how your journal website looks. In Step 5. “The Look” of the Journal Setup, you can select your theme using the drop-down menu in 5.6 Journal Management. Please consult this Guide for screenshots of each OJS theme for easy reference.

You can also upload a custom CSS stylesheet if you wish, but that will require more extensive knowledge of HTML and CSS. If you are interested in uploading a custom stylesheet please consult with your Site Administrator and OJS’s Documentation for making Stylesheet Modifications.

Custom Theme Plugin

The Custom Theme Plugin allows you a relatively simple way of altering the coloring of your journal website, by choosing colors for your site’s Headers, Links, Background, and Foreground.

If you are interested in using the Custom Theme Plugin, please contact your Site Administrator and/or Technical Support Contact to make this plugin's stylesheet file, located at "plugins/themes/custom/custom.css", writeable.

Using the Custom Theme Plugin:

If you have already contacted your Site Administrator and/or Technical support contact and the above stylesheet has been made writeable, you will be able to use the Custom Theme Plugin to change the colors of some elements of your journal site. Log-in as Journal Manager, click “User Home,” then select “Journal Manager” to open admin options.
Then select “System Plugins” under the “Management Pages” heading. This will direct you to a list of plugin types. Select “Theme Plugins,” which will direct you to a list of all themes currently installed on your OJS installation. Find the “Custom Theme Plugin” heading and select “Settings.” This will direct you to the Plugin interface where you can make style changes.
In the plugin interface you can use the “Pick Colour” button to select your desired colors for Header, Link, Background, and Foreground. This button will open an in-page color picker and will automatically enter the appropriate Hexadecimal color code (for more on hexadecimal color codes, see here).

Alternatively, if you know your desired hexadecimal color code, you can enter it in the text box to the left of the “Pick Colour” button. Once you have selected your desired colors, click save and the color changes will be made. To make sure your changes are displayed, make sure you choose “Custom Theme Plugin” as your Journal Theme in step 5.6 of the Journal Setup. Please note that if you see, “NOTE: This plugin’s stylesheet file, ‘plugins/themes/custom/custom.css’, is not currently writeable. This file must be writable before the plugin can be used,” you will not be able to save your color changes.

The Submission Process

OJS allows users to submit articles or other submission types (defined by the journal) directly into the journal site. These submissions are then organized and assigned to Editors or Section Editors, who then direct accepted submission into the Review process. In this section, you will be walked through the process of an Author submitting their article to a journal and how the Editor assigns submissions to an Editor or Section Editor and begins the review process.

Submitting an Article

Submitting an article or another submission type to a journal is a fairly simple process. Each journal might have different submission policies, so this will walk you through the basic steps for submission but please contact the journal’s Journal Manager and/or Editors if you have more specific questions about their individual submission procedures.

For most journals using OJS, potential authors must create an account for the site and register as an Author before submitting their work. Many sites allow Authors to Self-Register accounts (see "Managing Users and Creating Accounts" for instructions how), but some might require the Journal Manager to create an account for you. If you are unsure, please contact the site’s Journal Manager.

Log-in as an Author and navigate to the “User Home” page in the navigation bar of the journal site. Once on the “User Home” page, click “New Submission” to begin the submission process.
Clicking “New Submission” will direct you to a 5-Step Process for submissions “1. Start,” “2. Upload Submission,” “3. Enter Metadata,” “4. Upload Supplementary Files,” and “5. Confirmation.”
In “1. Start,” you will first select what “Journal Section” you will be submitting your work to. “Journal Sections” are defined by the Journal Manager but typically refer to the type of article you are submitting (e.g. “Article,” “Book Review”).

After selecting a Journal Section, you will need to read through and check off the journal’s prepared Submission Checklist. These checklists refer to submission requirements for the Journal such as file formatting and bibliographic standards. You must check each of the boxes to continue.

Before moving on to “2. Upload Submission,” you then will need to read through the journal’s Copyright Notice and Privacy Statement. Finally a text-box is provided in the form where you can fill out any comment you might have for the Editor (optional). When you are finished, click “Save and Continue” to proceed to the next step in the submission process.

In “2. Upload Submission,” you will select your file and upload it to the site before continuing on to the next step. Detailed instructions are provided on the page, but you must make sure you click “Upload” after choosing your article file but before clicking “Save and Continue” to proceed to the next step of the submission process.

In “3. Enter Metadata,” you will enter information about yourself, a Title and Abstract for your submission, and indexing information about your submission. Based on what you filled out when creating your account, much of the person information will be filled out automatically. Read over and include any additional information you might want to add. You can also choose to “Add Author” and enter their personal information if the piece is co-authored.

Next, you will enter a “Title” and “Abstract” for your submission, before entering indexing information about your submission. This information may be different depending on the journal (e.g. “Subject Classification,” “Keywords,” “Geo-spatial Coverage”). After entering indexing information, you can enter any contributors or supporting agencies and enter references for your submission. To proceed to the next step, click “Save and Continue.”

“4. Upload Supplementary Files” is an optional step where you can upload any supplementary files to accompany your submission (e.g. data sets, source texts, resource instruments). Some journals may require you to upload secondary files. If you are unsure, contact the Journal Manager. You can also enter additional information about your supplementary files, such as “Title,” “Type,” “Keywords,” and “Language.”

Also, as in “2. Upload Submission,” make sure to click “Upload” after choosing your file but before proceeding to the next step by clicking “Save and Continue.”

In the final step of the submission process, “5. Confirmation,” all you will need to do is review your submission. This step will display the files you uploaded in the “Upload Submission” and “Upload Supplementary Files” steps so that you can double-check to make sure you uploaded the correct file. Once you have confirmed, you may click “Finish Submission” to complete the submission process.

After clicking “Finish Submission” you will receive an email to the address linked to your user account that confirms your submission. Once completed, the Author can track their submission’s progress through the Review, Editing, and Publication process by logging in, navigating to “User Home,” and clicking “Author.” This will take you to a page where you can see the status of your current and past submissions and begin a new submission.

Assigning Submissions

After Authors submit their work to a journal, the submissions are listed as “Unassigned” until the Editor assigns the submission to an Editor or Section Editor to start the review process. Editors will be notified via email when an Author makes a new submission to the journal.

Log in as Editor and navigate to User Home. Click “Editor” to view the “Editor Home.” In the “Editor Home” page, Editors can view all submissions that are “Unassigned,” “In Review,” “In Editing,” and “Archives,” (published or past submissions). Click “Unassigned” to view a listing of all unassigned submissions.
Next, simply click on the submission’s title. This will direct you a Summary page for the submission. In addition to assigning the submission, you can also edit or add to the metadata provided by the Author for their submission.
To assign a submission, all the Editor must do is click “Add Section Editor,” “Add Editor,” “Add Self.” If you click “Add Section Editor” or “Add Editor” you will be directed to a listing of all Section Editors (or Editors) assigned to the journal. Click the desired user’s name, then click “Record” to complete assigning the submission. You can also click “Add Self” to assign yourself to guide the submission through the review process.

On this page, the Editor can also reject a submission before review, if desired, by clicking “Reject and Archive Submission.”

The Review Process

Once the Editor has assigned a submission to another Editor, a Section Editor, or to themself, they can begin guiding the submission through the review process. This guide will walk you through the process of assigning a reviewer, creating a new review form, reviewing submissions, and making a final decision on an article in OJS. For quick video tutorials on the Review Process, please consult Modules 9, 10, and 11 in PKP School’s “OJS for Editors” course (“Assigning a Reviewer,” “The Reviewer’s Steps,” and “Responding to the Reviews”).

Assigning a Reviewer

The first step in the review process involves the Editor or Section Editor assigning a Reviewer to a new submission. Please note that submissions must first be assigned to an Editor or Section Editor before they can be assigned to a Reviewer ("Assigning Submissions").

Log in as the Editor (or Section Editor) assigned to a submission and navigate to the User Home page of the journal website. The number of articles in review (assigned to the Editor or Section Editor) will appear on the User Home page next to the Editor or Section Editor User Home links.
By clicking “In Review,” the Editor can view all articles in review assigned to them. On this page, you can also track the submissions progress in the review process. By clicking the submission’s title, you will be redirected to the submission’s Review Page.
On the Review Page, the Editor can view information about the submission (e.g Authors, Title, Section), double check the review version (and supplementary files) submitted by the Author, and upload a revised review version (if the Author failed to remove all personally identifying information from their submission). The Editor can also send emails to either the Authors or the Editor assigned to the submission by clicking the mail icon next to the Author’s and Editor’s name. In order to assign a reviewer to the submission, click “Select Reviewer” to direct you to a list of all reviewers registered to the journal site.
Once on the Reviewer page, the Editor can view all reviewers registered to the journal. Moreover, for each reviewer, the Editor can view their stated research interests and information about their review history for your journal. “Done” refers to the number of reviews the Reviewer has already completed for your journal. “Weeks” refers to the average number of weeks the reviewer takes to complete a review. “Latest” indicates the date of the reviewers most recently accepted review. After selecting an appropriate reviewer for the submission, click “Assign” to assign the reviewer to the desired submission. After clicking “Assign,” you will be redirected to the submission’s Review page.
After assigning a Reviewer, a new section will appear on the submission’s Review page. On this page the Editor can select a previously prepared Review Form to guide the Reviewer’s comments on a submission (see “Creating a Review Form”). Once a review form is selected, the Editor must send an email request to the desired Reviewer by clicking the mail icon under “Request.” By accepting the request, the Reviewer will be able to begin their review of the submission. If you want to assign additional reviewers to the submission, repeat the process.

Creating a Review Form

In OJS, the Journal Manager can create review forms to guide Reviewers in their reviews and comments on submissions assigned to them. You can create multiple review forms and choose which one to provide the Reviewer with depending on the submission. Often Journal Managers will create separate Review Forms for each section of their journal (i.e. Articles, Book Reviews).

The Editorial Process

(coming soon)

The Publication Process