OJS

OJS, or Open Journal Systems, is free, open-source software for managing and publishing scholarly journals. It is developed and maintained by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) and supports the full editorial workflow from submission to publication. OJS enables online manuscript submission, peer review, editorial decisions, copyediting, layout, and the publication of issues and articles. It provides journal administration tools, user management, and metadata handling for indexing and discoverability.

OJS supports multiple journals on a single installation, with roles such as author, reviewer, editor, and editor-in-chief. It includes issue and volume organization, article metadata, search, notifications, and reporting. It offers configurable submission checklists, licensing options (including Creative Commons), DOI assignment, and Crossref integration. Multilingual support and a responsive design help journals reach diverse audiences.

Technically, OJS is a PHP-based web application running on common LAMP/LEMP stacks and using a relational database such as MySQL/MariaDB or PostgreSQL. It offers a plugin architecture to extend functionality, including indexing integrations, payment systems, and alternative peer-review models. It supports OAI-PMH for metadata harvesting and exports XML for data exchange, interoperating with PKP’s broader ecosystem.

OJS began in the early 2000s and has evolved through major releases. OJS 3 introduced a redesigned interface and updated editorial workflows. The project is released under the GNU General Public License v2 (or later), making it free to use, modify, and redistribute. A global community of institutions, libraries, and publishers contributes to its development and support.

It is widely used by universities, libraries, and scholarly societies to host open-access journals and to manage submissions, reviews, and publication processes. Institutions can deploy OJS themselves or use hosted services offered by PKP and partners. The platform remains a common choice in the open-access publishing landscape due to its extensibility and lack of licensing costs.