CHECKLIST OF GOOD PRACTICES IN
USING OPEN JOURNAL SYSTEMS
SOFTWARE (OJS) FOR JOURNAL
EDITING AND PUBLISHING
Iryna Kuchma, Open Access Programme Manager, EIFL
December 2021
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents 2
INTRODUCTION 3
ARE YOU USING THE LATEST VERSION OF THE SOFTWARE - OJS 3? 4
HAVE YOU SECURED YOUR SYSTEM? 5
HAVE YOU ACTIVATED PLUGINS? 5
Facilitating citations and social media sharing 5
Plugin to enable download of article metadata (BibTeX, MARC XML, RDF, RIS) in OJS 5
Article level metrics 5
Author identification 5
Depositing journal articles in repositories 6
DO YOU TRACK AND ANALYSE STATISTICS? 6
HOW VISIBLE AND DISCOVERABLE IS YOUR JOURNAL? 6
Enable OAI-PMH protocol and register with OA content aggregators 6
Index your journal with search engines 7
• Tips for using Google Search Console 7
• Tips for indexing with Google Scholar 8
Create Keywords for Article 9
Embed Dublin Core metadata in PDFs 9
Export DOI and associated metadata export 9
Register with DOAJ 9
More about improving visibility and discoverability of your journal 10
ARE YOUR JOURNAL PROCEDURES AND POLICIES AVAILABLE ONLINE? 10
DO YOU PARTICIPATE IN THE PKP PROJECT PRESERVATION NETWORK? 10
HOW ACCESIBLE IS YOUR JOURNAL CONTENT? 11
FURTHER READING 11
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INTRODUCTION
One of the goals of the EIFL Open Access Programme (EIFL-OA) is to ensure the growth and
sustainability of digital repositories and journal publishing platforms. Following publication of our
popular guide to using DSpace repository software, ‘How to make your Open Access repository
work really well’, we produced a similar resource on software for journals - Open Journal Systems
(OJS).
This checklist provides good practice recommendations for using OJS software for journal editing
and publishing. OJS is created by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), which is a multi-university
initiative developing free and open source software to improve the quality and reach of scholarly
publishing.
The checklist includes an overview of OJS 3 and tips on software plugins, journal procedures and
policies, system security and content, usage statistics, and suggestions for improving content
visibility and discoverability. It also includes a section about indexing your journals in DOAJ
(Directory of Open Access Journals) and recommendations for further reading.
We would like to thank David Bukenya (Uganda Christian University), Daniel Deogratus (Nelson
Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology), Richard Bruce Lamptey (Kwame
Nkrumah University of Science and Technology), Vaso Manojlovic (Metallurgical and Materials
Engineering journal), Solomon Mekonnen (Addis Ababa University), Gitau Njoroge (Kenyatta
University), Felix Rop (University of Nairobi), Milica Ševkušić (Institute of Technical Sciences of the
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Art), Denys Solovianenko (Ukrainian Research and Academic
Network - URAN) and Monica Westin (Google Scholar) for contributing to the first edition of this
checklist. This is a second, updated version of the checklist.
If you have any comments and suggestions, please email them to [email protected].
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ARE YOU USING THE LATEST VERSION OF THE
SOFTWARE - OJS 3?
The current production release (August 30, 2021) is OJS 3.3.0-8 and it can be downloaded as
.tar.gz (49 MB). OJS is a comprehensive tool for managing the entire submission and editorial
workflow and for publishing journal articles and issues online. It offers the following features:
● A responsive reader front-end with a selection of free themes or designs
● A flexible and configurable editorial workflow
● Online submission and management of all content
● It is integrated with scholarly publishing services such as Crossref, ORCID, and DOAJ
● It is recommended by Google Scholar for ease of indexing and discoverability
● It is locally installed and controlled
● It is community-led and supported
● It is multilingual and translated into over 30 languages
● It comes with extensive user guides and training videos
Check out the slides and recording of this LIBSENSE webinar, Open access publishing with OJS 3
(in English and French), that covers guidelines for establishing a scholarly journal and journal
management; the benefits of using OJS; and tips on OJS 3 configuration, navigation
interface/dashboard, journal, website and workflow settings, including configuration of the editorial
section and distribution settings, visibility of the journal, how OJS 3 is different from the previous
OJS versions, how to set it up, and a live demo of using OJS.
Consider upgrading to the latest version, if possible. Upgrade instructions can be found here:
https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/UPGRADE. The Upgrading from OJS 2 to OJS 3 guide describes some of
the changes between OJS 2 and OJS 3 and suggests steps for planning and completing your
migration. This guide will be useful for multi-journal installations, a single journal, various kinds of
institutions, and publishers.
Would you like to see the OJS 3 Demo? PKP hosts a demonstration of OJS 3.x (current) in
different languages. To explore the inner workings of OJS, you can take OJS for a test drive using
a live demo install: OJS 3.x (current). The login for the administrator account is “admin” and the
password is “testdrive”.
For more information, check out:
● Open Journal Systems 3 user guides, developer documentation and publishing tips
● Learning OJS 3.3: A Visual Guide to Open Journal Systems (also available in French for
OJS 3.2 and in Arabic for OJS 3.1)
● PKP Administrator Guide
● Setting up a Journal in OJS 3.3
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● Editorial Workflow in OJS 3.3
● PKP video tutorials: Editorial workflow videos, Journal setup videos, What’s New in OJS
3.3
HAVE YOU SECURED YOUR SYSTEM?
You will find the basic steps and recommendations for secure deployment of software and secure
file management, as well as steps for configuring your software to combat spam and other forms of
malicious registration activity on your site, in Securing your system FAQ.
In addition, having a strong anti-virus software on your server to protect your OJS platform against
viruses and other malicious code that may be present in uploaded files will be an advantage.
HAVE YOU ACTIVATED PLUGINS?
Facilitating citations and social media sharing
Activate available plugins such as Citation Style Language, so that your articles can be easily
cited, and AddThis Social Media Sharing to make it easier for the articles to be shared and hence
increase visibility.
Plugin to enable download of article metadata (BibTeX, MARC
XML, RDF, RIS) in OJS
This plugin provides an export of article metadata in the following formats: BibTeX, MARC XML,
RDF and RIS. In contrast to the already existing citation plugin of OJS (as part of the ‘reading
tools’), the metadata are not only displayed, but also offered for download.
Article level metrics
Paperbuzz Plugin for OJS versions 3.1.2 and above, built in cooperation with the Paperbuzz team
at OurResearch, brings free altmetrics (an alternative to traditional citation-based metrics) based
on open data to thousands of OJS journals.
Author identification
The ORCID Profile Plugin for OJS enables the collection and display of authenticated ORCIDs
(Open Researcher and Contributor IDs) of contributors to journals published with OJS. ORCID is a
persistent digital identifier that distinguishes individual researchers and supports automated links
between researchers and their professional activities. Check out the ORCID Plugin Guide for more
details and watch video tutorials.
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Organizational identifiers
To improve support for organizational identifiers, TIB developed an OJS plugin for managing
ROR (Research Organization Registry) metadata in OJS 3.2 and 3.3 that allows adding
organizations from the ROR registry and autocompletion of multilingual names, provided that they
are maintained in the ROR registry. This plugin is integrated into the OJS plugin gallery.
▪ Info: https://github.com/withanage/ror#research-organization-registryror-plugin
▪ Code: https://github.com/withanage/ror
▪ Demo: https://github.com/withanage/ror/blob/master/docu/ror.gif
Depositing journal articles in repositories
OJS allows journal managers and authors to deposit articles in repositories (for example,
institutional repositories) via the SWORD protocol (Simple Web-service Offering Repository
Deposit). The publisher has a comprehensive metadata set and a full text and the repository offers
dissemination and archiving services.
The journal manager defines a list of repositories in which an article could be uploaded; during the
article submission stage, the author ticks the box (so that when the article is published it is
automatically uploaded to the selected repository), and OJS does the rest.
DO YOU TRACK AND ANALYSE STATISTICS?
Do you have questions about statistics? Check out this handbook that explains how to configure,
use, and troubleshoot PKP’s Usage Statistics Framework. It also contains some information on
other statistics-gathering methods that are supported by OJS.
HOW VISIBLE AND DISCOVERABLE IS YOUR
JOURNAL?
As most readers discover online content through internet searches, greater visibility and
discoverability make it possible to reach out to a greater audience.
Enable OAI-PMH protocol and register with OA content aggregators
OJS exposes article metadata through OAI-PMH, which is a metadata harvesting protocol. Thanks
to the OAI-PMH protocol, aggregators may automatically harvest article-level metadata from OJS-
powered journals at regular intervals, through direct machine-to-machine communication.
To enable the protocol, you should configure the OAI module in OJS:
https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/doxygen/master/html/group__oai.html.
Having this done, check whether the module is properly configured by using one of the following
validators:
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http://oval.base-search.net/.
https://www.openarchives.org/Register/ValidateSite
If the journal website passes validation, you can register your journal(s) for indexing by various
aggregators of OA content, such as:
▪ BASE (to suggest a source for harvesting fill in the form: https://www.base-
search.net/about/en/suggest.php)
▪ CORE (https://core.ac.uk/faq/) or
▪ WorldCat (register for a WorldCat DigitL Collection Gateway:
https://www.worldcat.org/DigitalCollectionGateway/register.jsp; once your account is
created, you can register your journal(s) and set up harvesting).
Some aggregators have specific requirements that should be met in order to have content
harvested – e.g. OpenAIRE.
You may also register your journal website as a data provider with Open Archives Initiative.
Index your journal with search engines
One of the principal ways in which websites are found and indexed by internet search engines is
through metatags. Meta tags are bits of HTML that are on your webpage that aren't visible to users
but are visible to search engines and the bots they employ to crawl the web for content. OJS
allows you to fill in relevant metadata for your journal to help you best describe your content for
better findability.
If you are a Journal Manager you can go to:
Journal Manager > Setup > 1. Details
You can fill out description and keywords information that provides your site with important
metadata that is crawled by the search engines. Be as thorough as you can. There is also a
Custom Tags field that can be used for special use terms that might be unique to your journal.
- From Getting Your Journal Indexed PKP Wiki.
• Tips for using Google Search Console
Setting up a Google Search Console account will allow you to register your site for indexing
and submit its XML sitemap. OJS has an inbuilt sitemap. This is the usual path to the sitemap:
http(s)://journal domain/index.php/journal/sitemap.
This is an optional step, but it does speed up the indexing process, especially in Google
Scholar. Google will automatically detect ‘scholarly’ article content once you have published it,
and will add that to Google Scholar, so no other manual steps are required of you.
Please Note: Setting up Google Search Console will require a Google account. Additionally, if
you use Google Analytics for collecting the OJS usage statistics, the two services can be used
together.
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• Tips for indexing with Google Scholar
There is no need to register your site for it to be indexed. The Google Scholar crawler will
automatically find the site. The standard OJS URL structure has worked well for a long time.
Avoid customizing URLs, which makes it more difficult to identify a journal site, and as a result
takes longer to index.
For indexing, Google Scholar needs URLs for all articles and bibliographic information in the
form of machine-readable metadata tags (“metatags”). You can find more information about
metatags in the Google Scholar inclusion guidelines:
https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/inclusion.html#indexing
In OJS you can view metatags in the source code from the article landing page by right clicking
or keyboard command to ‘View Page Source’, depending on your browser, and search HTML
source for “citation_’ to view metatags. Metatags should match the published PDF: for
example, title, author, and publication dates match and bibliographic metatags written in (only)
language/script of the published full text article. Don’t duplicate metatag information in multiple
languages and scripts.
Common mistakes include inconsistent “first name last name” or “last name, first name” format,
incomplete author names, and errors in spelling and capitalization. List complete author names
in citation_author tags as they are written in the published PDF, in the same order as the
author order of the published PDF. Use either “last name, first name” or “first name last name”
format in metatags.
If metatags are no longer included after OJS upgrade, which was a known issue for journals
upgrading from OJS 2.x to OJS 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.1.0, and 3.1.1., when the Google Scholar plugin
was not automatically enabled, then -
Test: view the source code for a few articles in each journal that upgraded. If there is no
citation_title tag, your site is affected.
Fix: re-enable “Google Scholar Indexing Plugin” manually for individual journals via admin
dashboard for OJS instances with a small number of journals. And upgrade to OJS 3.1.2. Use
an SQL command for large OJS instances with many journals:
https://github.com/pkp/ojs/blob/stable-3_1_2/dbscripts/xml/upgrade/3.1.2_update.xml#L41..L42
Read more in the Google Scholar Guide and check out slides and recording of the joint EIFL
and Google Scholar webinar on how the Google Scholar indexing system works and how to fix
common OJS indexing problems, best practices for OJS journal indexing, Google Scholar
indexing guidelines and resources for OJS.
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Create Keywords for Article
OJS provides some tools which enable authors and journals managers to create keywords for the
items being published. This feature needs to be enabled so that the submission form may include
the keyword description during metadata description.
Embed Dublin Core metadata in PDFs
Most users who retrieve journal content using internet search engines will land directly on PDFs.
They will probably download a PDF and save it for later use. If a PDF is not supplied with
embedded metadata that can be automatically ingested into reference management tools, users
may not be willing to return to the journal’s website to check e.g. the licensing information or the
version of the paper. That is why it is useful to supply PDFs with embedded metadata in
accordance with the XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) standard. This can easily be done with
the help of the reference management software JabRef: http://help.jabref.org/en/XMP.
Export DOI and associated metadata export
PKP is continually working with Crossref to improve the level of overall DOI export support
provided within OJS and to help publishers and journals using OJS take better advantage of
Crossref services. As of 2014, PKP has become a Sponsoring Organization of Crossref and, as
such, provides much improved Crossref integration and overall support for the service.
Additionally, PKP can now act as a sponsor representative for OJS journals wishing to apply for
Crossref membership, and is in some cases able to waive fees. Check out this manual and learn
more about DOIs, how to set up the Crossref Plugin, reference linking and deposit, how to enable
the funding information plugin, and do a similarity check.
Register with DOAJ
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality,
open access, peer-reviewed journals. It includes over 17,214 journals covering all areas of
science, technology, medicine, social science and humanities. The content of the journals indexed
in DOAJ is automatically indexed by other content aggregators (for example, Dimensions.ai,
EBSCO Discovery Service, OpenAIRE).
The DOAJ Journal Application Form is available here: https://doaj.org/application/new and you will
need to log in or register to fill out the form. You will be able to save your progress and review all
your answers before you submit them. A PDF version of the application form is available for
reference only. Before you start, read DOAJ Guide to applying, also available in French
(Canadian). DOAJ Application Guide for OJS Journals from PKP is another useful resource for you
to consult.
And when registered, use a DOAJ Plugin in OJS.
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More about improving visibility and discoverability of your journal
Consult the revised edition of Getting Found, Staying Found, Increasing Impact: Enhancing
Readership and Preserving Content for OJS Journals guide, that highlights many aspects of the
publishing process that are important for increasing your journal’s “findability” and building a wider
audience. Moreover, it will also show you how to ensure reliable and ongoing access to your
valuable content. Much of the information in this resource is intended to be generic and could be
applied to any journal, using any software platform. However, the authors have opted to include
additional information pertaining to the OJS software to provide further illustrations of how to apply
this information in a real-world setting.
ARE YOUR JOURNAL PROCEDURES AND
POLICIES AVAILABLE ONLINE?
One way of demonstrating your journal’s high ethical and professional standards is to publish your
policies and procedures online. In line with publishing best practices, document and publish
procedures and policies, such as review process, access policy, quality control, Article Processing
Charges (if you charge any), author guidelines, copyright and licensing policy (e.g. Creative
Commons licences). OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association) strongly encourages
the use of the CC-BY license, rather than one of the more restrictive licenses or a custom license
that is functionally equivalent to CC-BY, read more in Best practices in licensing and attribution:
What you need to know.
Below are some templates developed within the ‘Revisiting open access journal policies and
practices in Serbia’ project:
● Editorial policy template that covers editorial responsibilities, authors’ responsibilities,
reviewers’ responsibilities, peer review process, procedures for dealing with unethical
behaviour and retraction policy, open access policy, copyright issues, etc.
● Different options for copyright management - templates for licensing agreements:
o authors retain copyright and publishing rights without restriction (a
recommended option for journals);
o author statement and
o copyright transfer agreement (not recommended option).
Consult Journal Publishing Guide: Copyright and licensing by the University of Toronto Libraries
Journal Production Services for more information. And check out the Journal Policies and
Workflows Guide by PKP.
DO YOU PARTICIPATE IN THE PKP PROJECT
PRESERVATION NETWORK?
The Public Knowledge Project Preservation Network (PKP PN) offers free-of-charge, low-barrier
preservation through the global LOCKSS Network for OJS journals.
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The PKP PN deposits content using the LOCKSS Program, which offers decentralized and
distributed preservation. This is a free preservation option for journals using OJS 3.1.2 and newer,
which are not part of any other digital preservation service (such as CLOCKSS or Portico).
The PKP PN functions as a “dark” archive, meaning that end-users will not have access to the
preserved content until after a “trigger event”, such as cessation of publication. After a trigger
event, PKP staff will import the preserved content into one or more OJS instances hosted by PKP
member institutions. Once loaded into these host OJS instances, the content will be publicly
accessible.
Using the PKP PN only requires installing the PKP PN plugin in your OJS journal and agreeing to
the terms of service. For information about the PKP PN, visit the PKP Preservation Network
Documentation.
(From Getting Found, Staying Found guide)
HOW ACCESIBLE IS YOUR JOURNAL CONTENT?
Check out The Creating Accessible Content guide that covers the general principles of creating
universally accessible content published on the web. It highlights techniques to address specific
limitations for the use of assistive technologies, such as screen readers for people with visual
impairment or sign language for those with auditory limitations. Finally, it gives specific tips on
creating different galley formats in an accessible way. This guide will be useful for authors in
preparation of their manuscripts and for editors in formatting materials for publication and adding
content to journal websites.
Also consult Designing Your Journal guide that gives advice and information on how to make your
OJS journal attractive, accessible, and unique.
FURTHER READING
● Ten Core Practices - 10 best practice guidelines for editors and journal publishers,
covering issues like how to deal with allegations of misconduct; authorship and
contributorship; conflicts of interest, post publication corrections, etc.
● Journal Publishing Guide: Publishing Best Practices Checklist by the University of Toronto
Libraries Journal Production Services
● Basic Steps for Starting a New Journal by PKP
● PKP School - an online, open, self-paced collection of courses:
o Becoming an Editor
o Becoming a Reviewer
o Writing for Publication
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o Library Publishing courses: Getting Started in Library Publishing; Attracting,
Selecting, and Disseminating Content for your Library Publishing Program;
Building and Measuring Impact for your Library Publishing Program.
● PKP resources will help you learn more about using OJS software or about starting and
managing your own journal: https://pkp.sfu.ca/education-and-training/
● Medical journals might also be interested in OJS PubMed Export Plugin
● If you publish a student journal, check out the Student Journal Toolkit by PKP
● Handbook for Journal Editors by INASP
● Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): How to use PKP software and common
troubleshooting issues
● Better Practices in Journal Metadata by PKP
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