This form provides general details about your journal, including the name, abbreviation, address, print or online ISSNs, and DOI. The Journal Title, Journal Initials, and Journal Abbreviation fields are mandatory. OJS provides links to the ISSN web site and CrossRef, if you wish to learn more about ISSNs and DOIs.

You must list the primary journal contact here. Any outgoing emails will typically be sent care of this person. Name and email fields are mandatory.

You must supply a name and email for your technical support contact. This contact information will be presented for contact purposes in key areas throughout the system, and will be available from About the Journal.

OJS makes extensive use of internal email forms. This signature will appear on the bottom of all emails sent by the system. You can also enter a bounce address (if the allow_envelope_sender configuration option is enabled in config.inc.php) where any undeliverable email messages will be sent.

The following three forms (1.5, 1.6, 1.7) will add information to the About the Journal section of your journal web site, under Journal Sponsorship.

You can specify publisher information in the first form.

You can add information about any sponsoring organizations your journal might have in Step 1.6. Additional organizations can be added by clicking the “Add Sponsoring Organization” button

You can add any sources of support in Step 1.7. Additional sources can be added by clicking the “Add Contributor” button

This optional section will allow you to add hidden HTML metatags to your journal’s web pages. Accurate information here can increase your visibility in search engines such as Google.

This section will display information about the history of your journal on the About page.

This form will add information to the About the Journal section of your journal web site, under its own Focus and Scope section.

The Peer Review section is split into different components:

The privacy statement will appear on the About the Journal section of your web site. Because you will be asking people to register with your journal and collecting their personal information, it is important to let them know of your policies in this regard.

Check this box to add all co-authors to the include list when an Editor sends a Notify Author email.

If you wish to add more information to the “About the Journal” section, this section allows you to enter content. Multiple entries are permitted, using the Add About Item button.

LOCKSS is an open source solution to archiving online journals. To ensure the preservation of your journal, follow the steps outlined in this section. OJS will even generate the email message to send to participating libraries.

You can add a link to an external Reviewer database here. This will provide a quick reference source for Section Editors or Editors looking for potential new reviewers for the journal.

These guidelines will appear on the About the Journal page and be available for potential authors to consult before submitting.

You can also configure the Submission Preparation Checklist in this section. When submitting an article to your journal, authors will be asked to ensure certain conditions are met using this submission preparation checklist. Authors will not be able to proceeed past the first submission step until they agree to all checklist conditions. Default items are provided, but you may add new ones or delete any that do not apply to your journal by using the Add Checklist Item or Delete buttons.

This copyright notice will appear on the About the Journal page. You also have the option to require that authors agree to your copyright notice before completing their submission, and to add a Creative Commons license to the journal web site.

This allows for the option of requiring authors and/or reviewers to file a Competing Interests statement.

Carefully selecting the most appropriate disciplines, classification system, and keywords will enhance the ability of others to find your articles. In OJS, Authors index their own submissions, but this information can be checked over and changed by Editors at any time. This form allows you to select from a number of indexing formats, add relevant examples to guide the authors, and provide them with a link to a subject classification system (such as the Library of Congress).

You can register the contents of your journal with the Public Knowledge Project Metadata Harvester or other OAI-compliant services (e.g., OAIster), which will allow for comprehensive searching among sites that adhere to the OAI Protocol for metadata harvesting.

You can request a notification email be sent to the journal’s primary contact, or another address, whenever an author has completed the submission process.

This section provides a number of options for access to your journal’s content.

OJS allows you to set the publication schedule that is best for your journal.

Digital Object Identifiers are becoming increasingly common for online journals, and OJS supports them. If you wish to use DOIs, you will not only need to select one of the options here, but also in Setup Step 1.1 (see previous). You can visit http://doi.org/ to learn more about registering for a Digital Object Identifier for your journal. A page number option is also available for journals. This is often useful for print journals that are going online.

This allows you to create an Announcements page for your journal web site, and post messages to your readers. Once this is activated, an Announcements link will automatically appear in the navigation bar of the journal, and an Announcement section will be added to the Journal Manager’s Management Pages menu.

The Copyeditor edits submissions to improve grammar and clarity, works with authors to ensure everything is in place, ensures strict adherence to the journal’s bibliographic and textual style, and produces a clean, edited copy for the Layout Editor to turn into the galleys that will be in the published format of the journal. If you have individuals to act as copyeditors, select the first option. If your editors will be acting as copyeditors, select the second option. The instructions will be made available to copyeditors, authors, and section editors in the Submission Editing stage.

The Layout Editor transforms the copyedited versions of the submission into galleys in HTML, PDF, PS, etc., files which the journal has elected to use for electronic publication. If you have individuals to act as layout editors, select the first option. If your editors will be acting as layout editors, select the second option.

Further options in this section include:

The Proofreader carefully reads over the galleys in the various formats in which the journal publishes (as does the author). The Proofreader (and the Author) records any typographic and formatting errors for the Layout Editor to fix. If you have individuals to act as proofreaders, select the first option. If your editors will be acting as proofreaders, select the second option. The instructions will be made available to proofreaders, authors, layout editors, and section editors in the Submission Editing stage.

Titles and images can be added to give your journal a unique appearance and identity. Title Text will add the text to the top of your journal web site’s home page (NOT to all the other pages — see below). Title Image allows you to upload an image-based header (.gif, .jpg, .png). A common size is 800px X 150px, but it can be as large or as small as you wish. The Logo Image allows you to add an image to the upper left corner of your site’s home page. Often these are square image (e.g., 125px X 125px). Whether using Title Images or Logo Images, remember to hit the Upload button before moving on to the next step.

Use this section to customize the appearance of your journal’s homepage, including a description, an image, the table of contents for the latest issue, and any additional content. Experiment with what looks good, but be careful not to make it too busy! The appearance of your home page will be the first impression many have of your journal, and if it doesn’t look professional, it will undermine its credibility. Take a look at what some of the many other OJS journals have done, and you’ll be sure to find several examples that appeal to you.

This option allows you to place a different title, image, or logo on pages other than the homepage. In many cases, this may simply be a smaller version of the homepage logo. If you just want the other journal pages to look the same as the home page, just repeat what you did in Step 5.1. You can also add a favicon here, and it will appear in reader’s browser URL bar. The Alternate Header box allows you to add your own HTML to customize the header exactly as you wish.

Footers can also be added to each page of your journal. It can be a good place to add your ISSN or a copyright statement.

By default, the most important navigation links will be included in your journal. However, if there are additional items to include, you may do so here (e.g., a link to the publishing institution’s home page). Additional links may be added using the “Add Item” button. Be sure to check the boxes if you are typing in plain text and a full URL. Otherwise, it will appear as ##SFU##.

Under Journal Layout you can choose a journal theme or upload a style sheet of your own. You can also move content blocks from left to right sidebars, move them up or down the sidebar, or eliminate them altogether. A copy of the general OJS v.2.x style sheet is available at: http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/download/common.css You can also find a thorough guide on customing your journal’s style and using themes in the online documentation.

Each of these descriptions will appear on your journal’s web site, on the right sidebar at the bottom by default. If you can change the information here, and if you delete the information, the link will automatically disappear from your site’s sidebar.

You can control the number of items to appear on any given list (e.g., 100 items will appear 25 per page over 4 pages), and the number of page links shown at the bottom of any list (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, Next).

Integrates OJS with phpMyVisites, a free and open source web site traffic analysis application. Requires that phpMyVisites is already installed on the server. (phpMyVisites has been deprecated in favour of Piwik, which also has a plugin.)

This plugin automatically generates HTML and PDF galleys from XML files. NLM 2.3 XML is supported by default, but custom XSLT files are also supported.

This plugin allows web-based maintenance of translation files, which are used to provide text for the OJS interface. You must first use the Enable link to activate the plugin, and then hit the Translate link to see the list of available locale fill.

Use the Edit link for the language you wish to update. There are many.

You will be shown a list of all locale files for that given locale. Click on the Edit link next to a locale file to modify one. You will see the English text in the top box, and the translated text in the lower box. Change the appropriate text and save. Your changes will be visible immediately.

Similar to the Translator Plugin, this allows you to modify the OJS text for your default language (e.g., to change “About the Site” to “About this Site”). However, it doesn’t change the locale file itself, but rather stores the change in the OJS database. You can also make custom changes on a per-journal basis using this plugin, whereas using the Translator plugin will change the locale site-wide, across all journals.

The OpenAds plugin allows dynamic ads from the OpenAds ad server to be inserted into OJS. This plugin requires the installation of OpenAds (now known as OpenX) on the server.

This plugin allows for the export of COUNTER formatted statistics for the journal (Journal Report 1: Full-Text Article Requests by Month and Journal). This does not provide COUNTER statistics for libraries (e.g., how many times an IP range has accessed your content).

This plugin tracks incoming refback URLs to articles (i.e., when a reader follows an external link to an article), allowing Authors to maintain and potentially publish an automatically-updated list of refbacks to an article.

The COinS plugin adds an OpenURL descriptor to article pages (abstract and HTML) that can be used e.g. for extraction to citation tools such as Zotero.

This plugin enables WYSIWYG editing of OJS textareas using the TinyMCE content editor.

This plugin allows you to create new OJS pages for additional content (e.g., an Advertising page).

Once you have enabled the plugin, an Edit/Add Content link will appear.

After clicking Edit/Add Content, you can either edit any existing pages (e.g., the previously-added “Links” page shown in the figure below) by using the Edit link next to the existing page; or you can create a new one by selecting Add New Page link.

After selecting the Add New Page link, fill in the resulting form. The “path” will be used as part of the page URL and the title will appear as the page title.

After saving the form, you can view the page at the URL indicated.

Any time you need to update this page, simply return to the Static Page plugin and edit the page.

Activating this plugin produces RSS/Atom web syndication feeds for the current issue and displays RSS/Atom links in the sidebar.

When a user selects one of the RSS/Atom links from the sidebar, it will produce a list of current issues and the option of adding it to their feed reader or live bookmarks.

To activate the current issue Web Feeds, select the Enable link.

You can then select Settings.

This page allows you to determine where the feeds will display and how many items will display (e.g., the entire current issue, or just the first few articles).

This plugin enables javascript interaction and styling of OJS content using the jQuery framework. This is enabled by default, and doesn’t need configuring.

This plugin implements Search Engine HighLighting (SEHL) so that when a search engine locates an HTML article, the sought-after keywords are highlighted in the article text. This can be enabled by selecting the Enable link.

This plugin will produce an RSS/Atom feed (see the Web Feed Plugin, above, for an explanation on RSS feeds) for Thesis Abstracts. Only journals publishing Thesis Abstracts (see below) should consider enabling this feature.

This plugin will allow you to display the content of external RSS feeds from other sources in your journal. For example, you can display the latest posts from the PKP News blog or the Open Access News blog in your sidebar.

To enable this feature, select the Enablelink.

This will provide you with an External Feeds link and a Settings link.

Next, select External Feeds. On the resulting page, you can edit any existing feeds or add a new one.

Selecting Edit opens a new form. Here, you can change the title, modify the feed URL, or revise how the feed will display on your journal.

For example, if you select Display on Homepage, the feed will appear like so:

Selecting Do Not Display in Block will prevent the blocks from displaying in the sidebar (for example, you may only wish to have the feeds appear on your home page and not in the sidebar). If you do wish to have the feeds display in the sidebar, you can also choose Display in Block on Homepage Only — and this will limit the feeds only appear in the sidebar of the homepage and nowhere else. You can also limit the number of items that will appear in the feed on your journal. Next, select Settings.

From here, you can upload a style sheet that will allow you to customize how the feeds display (e.g., to change the fonts, colours, etc.).

This plugin allows you to add new items to the sidebar. You might want to use this to emphasize your editorial board members or direct potential authors to your online submissions. To enable, select the Enable link.

You can then select Settings.

On the resulting page, give your new block a name and hit the Save button. If you wish to create another, use the Add Block button. Remember that once a block is created, you can change its position in Journal Setup Step 5.6.

To edit the new block, go to System Plugins > Plugin Management > Block Plugins from your Journal Management User Home page.

After selecting Block Plugins, you will now see that your new custom block has been listed as a block – e.g., EditorialBoard (Custom Block Plugin) in the example below.

Select Edit to add or edit content to the new block. Remember to Save.

The content will then appear in your sidebar.

This plugin produces RSS/Atom web syndication feeds for journal announcements, similar to the Web Feeds plugin above. Only journals that have activated Announcements would consider using this plugin. To activate it, select the Enable link.

In the resulting form, you can modify where the feeds will appear.

This plugin allows your journal to solicit and publish thesis abstracts. You can see this in action at the Canadian Journal of Communication by selecting the Thesis Abstracts link in their navigation bar.

From here, you can view the thesis abstracts or submit a new one.

Upon submission, the thesis senior supervisor is automatically notified by email and asked to confirm the accuracy of the submitted information by sending an email response to the Thesis Abstracts Contact. Once the confirmation is received, the Thesis Abstracts Contact can activate the thesis abstract submission by editing its corresponding record and changing the Status from ‘Inactive’ to ‘Active’. The thesis abstract will then become available to journal readers.

Select the Enable link to activate this plugin for your journal.

Once you have enabled the plugin, you can edit its Settings.

On the Setting form, fill in the relevant details. The Thesis Abstracts Contact must be enrolled as a Journal Manager with your journal.

To manage the theses, select Thesis Settings. You will see a list of existing theses to be edited, or use the Create New Thesis Abstract to add a new one.

On the resulting form, fill in all of the required information and save.

Rounded Corners: This Plugin puts a background on each sidebar block and rounds its corners. Changes can be made to the colours used by editing the CSS stylesheet found in the plugin. Select Enable to use this plugin.

Here is an example of the results:

This plugin integrates OJS with Google Analytics, Google’s web site traffic analysis application. It provides an excellent way to track the web traffic to your journal. It requires that you have already setup a Google Analytics account. To activate this plugin, select Enable.

This will create a Settings link, which you can click to configure the plugin.

Fill in the account number provided when you set up your Google Analytics account. Remember to clik Save. In a few hours, Google will start tracking your web traffic and generating a report.