I believe there is a much needed feature missing in Open Journal Systems, and it is the way subscriptions are handled. I know that people have requested the year-based subscription in the old forum.
Journals need a way to raise money to support itself. When journals are successful, they give back. While some academic journals that use OJS are not subsidized, what seems to be missing is a way for journals to offer various subscription options to their users. With the current workflow, if an institution or a person subscribes to a journal, they have access to the journal and all its back issues. While OJS is built on an open-access model, it would be great if journals can offer different subscription options whether if the journal content is open access, delayed access, paid access, or a combination of all.
Here is what I believe will benefit many (feel free to chime in)
A year-based subscription that limits access to the contents published in a year. In other words, if someone or an institution subscribes in 2016, they will only have access to issues published in 2016. A year-based subscription is really a subscription for current issues.
Subscribe to an issue and have access only to that issue. This option gives a user the ability to subscribe to an issue they want. Not all journals sell their issue, and giving them the option to issue subscription present another opportunity.
Subscribe to back issues. With this option, a user can select multiple back issues and subscribe to it.
In keeping faith to the OJS model, I am suggesting that we expand current option, while allowing OJS to continue giving an institution access to all issues. This ensures that journal managers can continue adding institutions that want access to back issues, while providing options for those institutions that want to choose what issues they subscribe to.
Is this something that can be done?
Newone