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OJS, OMP, and OPS are mature applications with several methodologies used in development as code is maintained and modernized on a rolling basis.
Historically the applications are monolithic and use a Model-View-Controller pattern within a custom framework first introduced with OJS 2.0 in 2005. Smarty was used for templating and ADODB is used for database abstraction (primarily supporting PostgreSQL and MySQL).
OJS 3.0 (first released in 2016) began introducing separation between the front end and back end as front-end Javascript and JSON became popular.
Initially the core applications (variously OJS, OHS, OCS, and later OMP and OPS) were independently maintained but forking of common concerns was an early issue, leading to the development of a common library (“pkp-lib”, the PKP Web Application Library). This has been further refined into a simultaneous release process for all current applications.
Beginning with OJS/OMP 3.2 (first released in 2020), the applications adopted VueJS and expanded the capabilities of the API by driving API development from the front end.
Beginning with OJS/OMP 3.3 (first released in 2021), the custom back-end stack is being gradually replaced with Laravel-based tools, including the database abstraction layer, event management, and other key tools. This transformation will continue over several major releases.
This pattern of rolling maintenance allows a modestly sized development team to continue regular stable releases without building technical debt that will lead to a large-scale rewrite of the software.
The team’s long-term technical goals are to
Implemented
PKP offers a range of resources and initiatives to engage with the broader community. These include a Community Forum, Documentation Hub, PKP School for educational opportunities, various training programs, and collaborative sprints. Public facing development roadmaps and a dedicated community engagement and outreach librarian further PKP's mission as a community-led project.
PKP operates under the guidance of an advisory committee comprising of member organizations and community contributors. All interest groups and committees are led by community contributors and are open to individuals who meet the minimum skill and experience requirements, and operate with adherence to PKP's Code of Conduct. PKP's community contributors play a vital role by providing in-kind contributions towards the advancement of our initiatives, covering aspects like multilingualism, documentation, software development, and education. Additional information about community engagement is available on the PKP website.
The key to the Public Knowledge Project’s success over the last two decades has been its commitment to writing, maintaining, and releasing free and open source software (FOSS) publishing platforms and workflows – namely Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Monograph Press (OMP), and Open Preprint Systems (OPS) – that support state-of-the-art open access scholarly publishing.
Similar to how open access research is research that has been licensed to be freely shared, read, cited and more, without restrictions or fees, FOSS is licensed to be freely shared, installed, and modified. More specifically, PKP employs the General Public License V3 for its FOSS and recommends that those using the software apply a CC BY 4.0 license to their open access publications.
The congruence in spirit and license that PKP has achieved between FOSS and open access has worked well in assisting the academic community in taking charge of scholarly publishing in the digital era. The resulting software has led to publishers, librarians, and scholars publishing millions of peer-reviewed articles and books around the world. It has also given rise to a new generation of FOSS preprint servers.
Building FOSS platforms leads to a distributed model of local installations that can develop regional technical capacities on a global scale. It encourages code contributions from among users, especially in the form of FOSS plugins for the platforms. It also facilitates users sharing translations of the software. PKP systems operate in more than 30 languages, while publishing research in 60 languages. In this way, FOSS reflects a spirit of cooperation and collaboration that underlies the spread of a more open science.
Open source + open access is also giving rise to more equitable forms of scholarly publishing. The best example of this is the OA diamond journal phenomenon, in which neither authors nor readers are charged for open access to the journal’s content. In 2021, the OA Diamond Journals Study led by Arianna Bercerril found that 60 percent of these publishing diamonds are using OJS, while they estimate that there may be as many as 29,000 OA diamond journals. If anything, this may be an undercount, given that in 2021 over 30,000 journals were found to be using OJS, almost entirely on diamond principles.
All in all, open source + open access enables PKP to bring a refreshing and expanding openness to scholarly communication infrastructure on a global scale.
Open Preprint Systems is an initiative of the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), a member of the Core Facility Program at Simon Fraser University since 2022 which operates under the auspices of the Office of the Vice President, Research and International (VPRI) of Simon Fraser University. PKP is additionally guided by an Advisory Committee, SFU Community Advisory Committee, Technical Committee, Members Committee, and a Code of Conduct Committee.
