OJS Improvements: Expanding Core Functionality & Usability

Lead authors

Antti-Jussi Nygård , Dulip Withanage , Ipula Ranasinghe ,

Contributors

Reviewers: 

Draženko Celjak , Maxim Kupreyev , Radek Gomola

Introduction

Enhance your Diamond Open Access publishing with the latest features of Open Journal Systems! CRAFT-OA’s new features bring GDPR-compliant user management, smarter multilingual support, and richer metadata tools - boosting visibility, inclusivity, and data quality. Built together with PKP, these improvements benefit all OJS, OMP, and OPS users across Europe and beyond.

Description

CRAFT-OA brings major improvements to Open Journal Systems, Open Monograph Press, and Open Preprint Systems. The newly added features make publishing more secure, multilingual, and discoverable. Editors, publishers, and service providers can now manage journals more easily and meet modern standards for Diamond Open Access publishing.

User management is now GDPR-compliant through invitations. Editors invite new users or suggest roles, and users must accept before joining. This ensures data privacy and transparency.

Multilingual publishing is more flexible. Editors can change the submission language at any stage, and each language version gets its own URL. Metadata can be added in over 700 languages, even if no interface translation exists. This makes journals easier to find and read in different languages.

Metadata quality is also improved. Journals can use controlled vocabularies for keywords, assign CRediT contributor roles, and cite datasets directly in articles. This strengthens metadata consistency, discoverability, and author attribution.

Editors and publishers benefit from improved compliance and more accurate metadata. Authors gain better visibility and recognition for their contributions. Readers can find research more easily in their own language.

To use these features, update to the latest version of OJS, OMP, or OPS once available, review the release notes, and test the invitation workflow, multilingual options, and metadata settings in your journal settings.

By using the new CRAFT-OA improvements, you ensure GDPR compliance, support multilingual publishing, and raise the overall quality and visibility of your journal. These updates make Open Journal Systems more inclusive, professional, and ready for the future of scholarly publishing.

Links to the output

Open Journal Systems (OJS) - Software - Public Knowledge Project
Open Preprint Systems (OPS) - Public Knowledge Project
Open Monograph Press (OMP) - Public Knowledge Project

Further reading

CRAFT-OA Brings Multilingual Improvements to Open Journal Systems 3.5
PKP Releases OJS, OMP, and OPS 3.5.0 - Public Knowledge Project