Describe the problem you would like to solve
In OJS 3.4 there is no native way to formally represent relationships between different language versions of the same scholarly article when they are published as separate records with separate DOIs.
In multilingual publishing workflows, it is increasingly common to publish an article in more than one language (e.g., Polish and English), where each version is treated as a distinct publication with its own DOI.
However, OJS does not support expressing Crossref-standard relationships between these versions, such as hasTranslation and isTranslationOf. As a result, these relationships are lost at the metadata level and cannot be properly registered with Crossref.
Currently, journals must either:
- manually edit Crossref XML exports before deposition, or
- rely on outdated third-party plugins that are not compatible with OJS 3.4.
This creates unnecessary manual workload and increases the risk of metadata inconsistencies.
Describe the solution you’d like
I would like OJS to provide native support for defining translation relationships between publication objects.
Ideally, this would include:
- the ability to link two (or more) published versions of the same article in different languages,
- explicit designation of relationship type (e.g., original article / translation),
- automatic inclusion of Crossref <related_item> metadata in the XML export,
using relationship types such as:- hasTranslation
- isTranslationOf
This functionality could be implemented either:
- at the publication level (as a relationship between publication objects), or
- within the Crossref export plugin.
The goal is to eliminate the need for manual XML editing and ensure full compliance with Crossref metadata standards for translations.
Who is asking for this feature?
This request comes from a university-based scholarly journal using OJS 3.4 in a multilingual publishing workflow.
We are currently transitioning to publishing articles in both Polish and English as separate DOI-identified publications. This feature would significantly improve our editorial workflow and metadata quality.
Additional information
Crossref supports translation relationships via the related_item structure, for example using:
- relationship-type=“hasTranslation”
- relationship-type=“isTranslationOf”
However, OJS does not currently expose any mechanism to generate this metadata automatically.
This functionality was partially addressed in older versions of OJS through third-party plugins (e.g. DoiForTranslation), but these are not compatible with OJS 3.4 and do not appear to be actively maintained.
Adding native support would greatly improve interoperability with Crossref and reduce the need for manual post-processing of XML deposits.