On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) has announced the release of the latest versions of its community-driven, research-based software solutions: Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Monograph Press (OMP), and Open Preprint Systems (OPS). These free and open-source software (FOSS) platforms empower independent scholarly journals, presses, and preprint servers to facilitate efficient and accessible publishing processes.
The newly launched Version 3.4 introduces a range of enhancements designed to improve the author submission experience. Authors can now enjoy an auto-save feature, ensuring their work is protected in the event of a network outage. Additionally, important details such as submission language and section can be modified, and a final review step enables authors to double-check the completeness of their submission before finalizing it.
The statistics toolset has undergone a significant rewrite, providing better support for institutional and geographic statistics and facilitating compliance with the COUNTER R5 standard. Furthermore, DOI (Digital Object Identifier) support has been comprehensively reworked in collaboration with Crossref. Previously, managing different types of DOIs required checking multiple parts of the editorial workflow, but now a unified interface simplifies the management of these identifiers.
Behind the scenes, the development team has dedicated substantial effort to updating the codebase, resulting in improved data management, class loading, and other back-end optimizations. These enhancements offer a more pleasant experience for software developers and enable the publication of high-quality database schema documentation for the first time.
Editors will benefit from a new step-by-step interface for recording editorial decisions, featuring an email composer that simplifies drafting emails, attaching files, and utilizing email templates in any language. Thanks to community input and usability tests, the submission workflow has become more intuitive and accessible. Additionally, submission titles can now include limited formatting, addressing a long-standing feature request and facilitating the inclusion and proper formatting of taxonomical names in titles.
For users currently utilizing the successful 3.3.0 LTS ("long-term-support") releases of OJS, OMP, or OPS, rest assured that PKP will continue to provide support for 3.3.0 for several more years until a new LTS release is ready to take its place. Organizations interested in exploring the cutting-edge changes introduced in 3.4.0 are welcome to upgrade. For further information on release strategies and determining the best path for your organization, please refer to the PKP Announces Long-Term Support (LTS) Software Releases document.
The latest versions of OJS, OMP, and OPS reflect PKP's ongoing commitment to advancing independent scholarly publishing and empowering researchers and institutions to disseminate their work effectively. These FOSS platforms provide a robust foundation for the scholarly community to embrace open access publishing and drive innovation in academic publishing practices.
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