The Problem We Are Solving
Open Journal Systems (OJS) is used by tens of thousands of journals in every country in the world. Many of those journals are run by small editorial teams — often a single overworked editor-in-chief, a volunteer copy editor, and an author pool with varying degrees of familiarity with online submission systems.
For these users, the challenge is not OJS itself — it is the knowledge needed to configure, manage, and use it well. The official documentation produced by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is excellent and comprehensive, but:
- It is not always organised by role, requiring users to know what to search for before they can find help.
- It can be overwhelming for newcomers who do not yet know the vocabulary of OJS settings and workflows.
- Some sections have gaps or reflect older OJS versions.
- Practical tips — the kind of thing that emerges from running a journal for years — are scattered across forum threads rather than consolidated in one place.
The purpose of this guide is to translate OJS knowledge into practical, role-specific guidance that any journal stakeholder can pick up and immediately use — without needing to already know what to look for.
Six Reasons This Guide Exists
Navigate OJS Confidently
OJS has hundreds of settings, multiple roles, and a complex editorial workflow. This guide gives every user a clear map of what matters for their role and how to find it.
Save Time
Searching the PKP Forum and official docs for a specific answer can take hours. This guide distils practical answers into role-specific pages that get you to the solution faster.
Support Institutional Adoption
Universities, libraries, and independent publishers starting new journals need onboarding material. This guide provides that material — free, adaptable, and up to date.
Enable Training
Trainers and librarians running OJS workshops need reliable, current content. This guide is designed to be adopted directly into training sessions, slides, and handouts.
Level the Playing Field
Not every journal has access to expensive consultants or a dedicated IT team. This guide gives every team — regardless of size or budget — the knowledge to run OJS well.
Support Open Science
OJS is a cornerstone of open-access publishing. By helping more people run OJS journals effectively, this guide contributes directly to the global open science movement.
Relationship with PKP
This guide is an independent publication. It is not produced by PKP and is not an official PKP resource. However, it is deeply grateful to and draws extensively on the outstanding open-access documentation, software, and community that PKP has built over more than two decades.
Every substantive section of this guide links to the corresponding official PKP documentation, and we actively encourage readers to consult the PKP Documentation Hub, PKP Community Forum, and PKP School for deeper reference, community support, and formal training.
Open Access Commitment
This guide will always be free. It is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licence — you are free to read, share, translate, adapt, and redistribute it, as long as you credit the source.
There will never be a paywall, a premium tier, or a registration requirement to read any part of this guide. The knowledge needed to run an open-access journal should itself be open access.