About the Book
OJS for Everyone: The Practical Guidebook is a free, open-access reference for everyone who uses Open Journal Systems (OJS) — the world's most widely used open-source scholarly publishing platform, developed and maintained by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) at Simon Fraser University.
The guide is organised by role — Site Administrator, Journal Manager, Editor, Reviewer, Author, and others — so that every user can quickly find the guidance that applies to their work. It is written in plain language, with step-by-step instructions, real-world tips, and links to the official PKP documentation for deeper reference.
"OJS is powerful. This guide makes it practical."
Covering OJS 3.5+, the guide is updated continuously as the platform evolves. It is published as a living document under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licence, meaning anyone may freely read, adapt, and redistribute it with attribution.
Learn More
Explore the pages below to understand the values and intent behind this guide.
Who Is This Guide For?
This guide is written for every stakeholder in an OJS-powered journal:
- 🖥️ Site Administrators — installing, upgrading, securing, and maintaining OJS on your server.
- ⚙️ Journal Managers — configuring journals, setting up workflows, managing plugins and themes.
- ✏️ Editors & Section Editors — handling submissions, assigning reviewers, managing the editorial process.
- 🔍 Reviewers — navigating the review interface and submitting quality reviews efficiently.
- 📝 Authors — preparing and submitting manuscripts, responding to reviews, tracking submission status.
- 📋 Copyeditors, Layout Editors & Proofreaders — production tasks from copyediting through final galley approval.
No prior technical knowledge is assumed. Whether you are starting your first OJS journal or are a seasoned administrator, this guide has something for you.
How the Guide Is Maintained
This guide is produced and maintained by RSYN Research LLP in collaboration with the OJS community. It is independent of PKP and is not an official PKP publication, though it draws extensively on the excellent open-access materials produced by PKP.
Contributions — corrections, additions, or translations — are welcomed via the GitHub repository. See the Contact & Contribute page for details.
Quick Links
- Book Frontmatter — preface, acknowledgements, table of contents
- Title & Verso Page — bibliographic details, ISBN, publisher
- Copyright & Licence (CC BY 4.0)
- Disclaimer
- Privacy Policy
- Terms of Use
- Contact & Contribute