Open Journal Systems (OJS) is an open source solution to managing and publishing scholarly journals online. OJS is a highly flexible editor-operated journal management and publishing system that can be downloaded for free and installed on a local Web server.

This guide is a comprehensive manual covering the various functions and configuration options of OJS version 3.3, released in February 2021. It contains information on everything users need to use the software to publish and manage content as a site administrator, journal manager, editor, peer reviewer, and/or author. It provides detailed instructions with screenshots for applying journal and website settings, using and configuring the editorial workflow including making submissions and peer review, managing users, using statistics, and configuring subscriptions. By following this guide, users will be able to successfully submit, edit, publish, and display academic articles on OJS.

Copyright: Simon Fraser University holds the copyright for work produced by the Public Knowledge Project and has placed its documentation under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Visual Guide to Open Journal Systems

• About Open Journal Systems (PDF)
  • Background
  • OJS Features
  • What’s New in This Version of OJS
  • Community Contributions
  • Support
• Installing and Upgradings (PDF)
  • Download
  • Hosted Solutions
• Site Administration (PDF)
  • Site Management
  • Administrative Functions
• Journal Settings (PDF)
  • Masthead
  • Contact
  • Sections
  • Categories
• Website Settings (PDF)
  • Appearance
  • Setup
  • Plugins
  • Static Pages
• Workflow Settings (PDF)
  • Submission
  • Review
  • Publisher Library
  • Emails
• Distribution Settings (PDF)
  • License
  • Search Indexing
  • Payments
  • Access
  • Archiving
• Users and Roles (PDF)
  • Managing Users
  • Permissions and Roles
  • Site Access Options
• Statistics (PDF)
  • Definitions
  • Articles
  • Editorial Activity
  • Users
  • Report Generator
• Tools (PDF)
  • Import & Export
  • Permissions
• Subscriptions (PDF)
  • Subscription Policies
  • Subscription Types
  • Payment Types
  • Payments
  • Individual Subscriptions
  • Institutional Subscriptions
  • Payment Notifications
  • Subscription Block
  • Setting Articles as Open Access
• User Account Management (PDF)
  • Registering with a Journal
  • Viewing and Changing your Profile
  • Resetting your Password
• Authoring (PDF)
  • Registering with the Journal
  • Submitting an Article
  • Editing Metadata
  • Responding to a Review
  • Resubmitting for Review
  • Responding to a Copyediting Request
  • Responding to a Proofreading Request
• Reviewing (PDF)
• Editorial Workflow (PDF)
  • Tasks
  • Submission Notifications
  • Submission Dashboard
  • Review
  • Copyediting
• Production and Publication (PDF)
  • Publication Tabs
  • Format Article for Publication
  • Finalize Metadata
  • Create Issue
  • Add the Article to an Issue
  • Schedule for Publication
  • Versioning of Articles