OJS 2.4.2.0 GA4 google analytics

Software Support
1

Good day

Some of our journals are still using OJS 2.4.2.0 and with Google Analytics recent move to the GA4 properties, data from the old OJS are not being collected. I tried updating the measurement ID but that has not solved the problem.
Will it require an updated plugin or what settings need to change please?

thanks!

2

Hi Claudia,

First, take in consideration that 2.4 version is really old and PKP don’t support such as old versions.
Besides the GA4 issue, I encourage you to upgrade to, at least, the 3.3 LTS version to keep your system secure and updated.

Said that, there are privacy concerns related with Google Analytics so PKP’s technical committee recomends to use alternatives as Plausible or Matomo:
https://pkp.sfu.ca/2022/04/21/google-analytics-privacy-practices-challenged/

If you still like to use GA4 in 2.x, you will need to edit your template header to add the GA4 script.
If you upgrade to 3.4, you don’t need to modify the templates and you can add the GA4 with the custom headers plugin.

Cheers,
m.