This page showcases the activities of the German-speaking OJS community and provides information about regular meetings and upcoming workshops. It also provides an overview of current and important topics within the community.
OJS community events
As part of the International Open Access Week, the Diamond Open Access Service Centre (SeDOA) is hosting a series of Coffee Lectures. The OJS Network will be addressing the question: How can Diamond OA be implemented sustainably and with quality assurance using Open Journal Systems (OJS)? Building on the SeDOA definition of Diamond Open Access, we will examine the requirements derived from it and discuss how the implementation of Diamond OA using OJS can be facilitated from both a technical and organisational perspective.
Registration link: https://eveeno.com/179701657
With ‘Ask Anything’, the OJS Network provides a forum for any questions relating to Open Journal Systems (OJS). This format is aimed at anyone who works with OJS and has specific questions. Whether it’s getting started, specific use cases, workflows, technical details or best practices: anything can be asked. In this way, we aim to provide a space for all those questions that would otherwise have nowhere to be asked. The aim is to engage in a joint exchange of ideas.
Participation: You can take part in the event without prior registration. Link to the event: via Zoom
Current topics from the community
- 8 October 2026 – OJS Hosting focus group
The OJS Hosting focus group met on 8 October 2026, during which the “Automated Testing for OJS” sub-group presented its findings. Methods and tools (Hurl, Cypress, Playwright) were demonstrated that can be used to automatically test the status of OJS installations. The tests developed and instructions on how to use them are available in the GitHub repository – mpbraendle/OJS-Tests · GitHub. - 24 September 2026 – Resources for OJS 3.5
The article by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) dated 24 September 2026 presents tools, guides and data solutions from the open access community that provide support for the transition to OJS 3.5.
Link to the article: https://pkp.sfu.ca/2026/09/24/3-5-resources-from-across-the-community/ - 18 September 2026 – PKP Preservation Network plugin now available for OJS 3.5
The PKP Preservation Network Plugin (PKP PN Plugin) has been updated for OJS 3.5. The plugin offers journals using Open Journal Systems (OJS) a long-term solution for preserving published content. The PKP PN Plugin is available in the OJS plugin gallery and can be installed directly from within OJS.
Link to the news article: https://pkp.sfu.ca/2026/09/18/pkp-pn-plugin-now-supports-ojs-3-5-lts/ - 24 August 2026 – Information on the reviewer database for academic journals
The PKP forum features an announcement regarding an open-source reviewer database that journals can install and host locally:
Link to the forum post: https://forum.pkp.sfu.ca/t/a-reviewer-expertise-database-for-academic-journals/98684
and to the original blog post: https://blog.planetary-research.org/2026/08/24/a-reviewer-expertise-database-for-academic-journals/ - 21 July 2026 – PKP News: A look at OJS 3.6
The upcoming version 3.6 of OJS, OMP and OPS will each include an integrated HTML editing tool, as well as the ability to generate HTML, PDF and JATS XML files. This will enable the entire process, from manuscript to the immediate generation of the final document, to be carried out in one place. The integrated text editor utilises SciFlow and is available as an alternative, though it is designed not to interfere with existing workflows. With the Grobid plugin enabled, metadata from manuscripts can also be automatically transferred to the submission form. Further information on version 3.6: PKP News on OJS 3.6.
Magnus Lu (PKP) also provides a more in-depth look at the features and functionality of OJS 3.6: https://pkp.sfu.ca/2026/05/26/ojs-3-6-bringing-manuscript-editing-and-production-under-one-roof/ - 1 July 2026 – OJS, OMP and OPS version 3.5.0-5 LTS released
PKP has announced the release of OJS, OMP and OPS 3.5.0-5, which has now been officially designated as a Long-Term Support (LTS) version. Further information and download links can be found at: https://pkp.sfu.ca/2026/07/01/3-5-0-5-lts-release/
- The annual PKP sprint took place in Warsaw from 18 to 19 May 2026. PKP has now published the working groups’ documentation and a summary of the results: https://pkp.sfu.ca/2026/07/28/waw-sprint-roundup/
- 8 July 2026– The OJS Hosting focus group meeting in July focused on the use of AI and support for editorial work. Interesting experiences were shared by, amongst others, Kathrin Ganz and Sabrina Schotten (Open Gender Journal) and Thomas Jurczyk (the journal “PhiMiSci”). Link to the meeting protocol.
- On Tuesday, 16 June 2026, TIB Hannover once again organised a translation sprint for the German-language translation of the OJS documentation (Learning OJS). With seven participants, it was a very successful sprint. Divided into three teams, the participants reviewed and finalised many sections, meaning that the translation of the German documentation for OJS 3.3 can be completed shortly. Ideas on how to proceed from there were also discussed.
Find out more about the community and how to get in touch on our community page: OJS Communities - 11 June 2026 – First session of the ‘Ask Anything’ series: With ‘Ask Anything’, the OJS Network provides a forum for any questions relating to Open Journal Systems (OJS). The format is aimed at anyone who works with OJS and has specific questions. The first session in this series was warmly received by the community. Due to the significant interest, the frequency of future sessions has been increased to every two months. Dates will be announced here on this page.
- 8 June 2026 – OMP – Establishment of a discussion group: Following a suggestion made at the annual meeting of the University Publishers Working Group (AG Universitätsverlage) to gauge interest in a discussion group on the topic of OMP, invitations were sent out for an initial meeting on 8 June 2026. With over 40 participants, it was clear that there was significant interest in an ongoing exchange on OMP. A mailing list has been set up to coordinate and publicise future meetings: https://lists.fu-berlin.de/listinfo/omp-netzwerk
- 29 May 2026 – Inaugural meeting of the German-language OJS translation group: The topic of translating the OJS interface into German was already discussed last year in the OJS Hosting focus group. The OJS Network revisited the topic at the start of this year and invited interested parties to an initial meeting to discuss and plan the approach to the translation. The group meets at irregular intervals. Anyone wishing to contribute to the translation is welcome to join. Announcements of the meetings can be found in this post on the PKP Forum.
- The OJS Network’s virtual kick-off event took place on 23 April 2026. The presentation slides are available on Zenodo.
Ameis, K., & Krüger, O. (2026, April 23). Online-Veranstaltung: OJS-Netzwerk – Informationen und Austausch. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19728760
If you have any topics and/or activities from your communities that you’d like to share here, please feel free to email us at ojs-netzwerk@sedoa.org.