First of all, thank you for the great job to launch a new version of OJS (OJS3)!
I have already downloaded the OJS3b1 and I have some minor remarks to make, if I may!
While it is a beta version and, thus, not a fully working version, but just in case here are some remarks;
the interface seems to be be much better than OJS2! A nice job!
after installation, when I want to create a new journal, I do not know why a ‘path’ is required and it is somewhat confusing what a path should be! Normally, the path should be the URL of the site and the name of journal should be added automatically to the end of the URL! So, in my view the field “path” should not be required (or at least it should be added automatically by the system itself).
after giving a path, anyway, and clicking “save” the system takes a long time to save the journal, it turns permanently indeed! As such, I couldn’t go further to test more functionalities.
However, I hope that the PDF display is much improved compared to OJS2, but not embedded in a small window as it was the case in OJS2 (or at least we have the choice to download a full PDF file to read in a third party PDF reader).
We should be able to go through all the submission steps to see what is required in advance to prepare all the required files in advance and then proceed with the submissions once we are aware of all the steps. But currently, the submission does not continue unless we finalize the first step first, then the second step second, and so on! This is somewhat unhandy and time-consuming. We should be able to go through the first till the last step and just prior to final stem ‘confirm the submission’, the system could ask the submitter to complete the missing steps (filed non uploaded, author or abstract missing, etc)!
(this is the way the editorial manager works, which is extremely handy in my view because as stated earlier, it allows authors to check or see what is required for the submission to be prepared to, before starting a full submission process).
once the admin is login, s/he should be able to do everything (from submission to the final phase of publishing a paper online). By default, an admin should have all the roles, so he should be able to submit and publish any paper directly without passing through all the steps required for the classical editorial flow.
hopefully, there would be a function or an option for “citation” purposes of the published papers, for ex. “Cite as”… alongside the HTML versions.
Voila some quick remarks! maybe there would be other ones after the installation and testing the final version.
Thanks again for the great job of OJS3! Keep it up!
I should add that, apparently, to start the submission, the submitter is required to choose a language mandatory while the language field is empty! So, we cannot go further!
Also, the section field seems to be empty, too!
If we install OJS in English only, why a language choice is required? And, if there is no section, why the choice of section is required or proposed during the submission process?
I am just wondering why not to make all the submission steps customizable by the Admin himself? I mean that the admin should be able to determine or specify what should be mandatory and what could be optional.
This should be more flexibility to the journal manager.
Another thing that might be interesting is to add options for slider or text scrolling to make dynamic pages that usually give the impression that webpages are active compared with static pages!
We’ll be releasing OJS 3.0 very soon – currently planned for August 31st. We’ve made a lot of progress on it since the beta was released just over a year ago. I would suggest checking out OJS 3.0 once it’s released, or if you want to assess it before then, check out the current version of the master branch from github.
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
Thank you, Alec, for the good news and for your great efforts in OJS3!
Is the master branch different from the beta version OJS3b1?
As I said above, I installed the OJS3-beta 1 in a local server but I encountered some issues, which is comprehensible at this stage. For example, the journal page does not display correctly and the submission process discontinues at the first step.
Anyway, hopefully we will find interesting features in OJS3, and the possibility to get new functions in more frequent updates, more frequently than in OJS2 for example, which I tried for a while but I then gave up because I found it a little time consuming in many aspects that could be much improved. Hopefully it was the case in OJS3.
OJS 3.0 (a.k.a. the current master branch, to be released shortly) is substantially different than the beta you tested; looking forward to getting your feedback on the release!
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
Can you please give the right link for downloading the OJS3?
I have already tried to download it from the following link: GitHub - pkp/ojs: Open Journal Systems
but the file size is merely 8 Mo, and when I try to install this, I have the following error message:
Warning: require(./lib/pkp/includes/bootstrap.inc.php) [function.require]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in C:\wamp\www\ojs3\index.php on line 65
Call Stack
Time Memory Function Location
1 0.0004 365576 {main}( ) …\index.php:0
( ! ) Fatal error: require() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘./lib/pkp/includes/bootstrap.inc.php’ (include_path=’.;C:\php\pear’) in C:\wamp\www\ojs3\index.php on line 65
Call Stack
Thanks, but it is the same link from which I downloaded my file but the installation yielded error messages.
I’ll take a look at the doc or wait for the final version, though I expected that the installation should be easier than in the beta, which has been installed relatively easily.
OJS 3.0 has not been formally released yet, so we haven’t built a package yet. When 3.0 is released, there will be a download similar to the one for the beta.
Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team
After installing OJS 3 in XAMP and creating new journal I have got only Tasks and Administration menu. I cannot add new user, role… When I try to upload new article in the drop menu for language and section the fields are empty. I cannot submit article, add roles… I cannot do anything. When I click on View site I see only text links and nothing else. Where is the problem?