OJS Login with email address instead of username

Feature Requests
1

Would it be possible to let users login with their email address instead of username ?
In fact we would like to remove completely username from the viewpoint of users
(of course, the system can generate them automatically and use them if really necessary)

login with username seems not so popular nowadays, we have several users of our journal that prefer email identification

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2

Hi @san ,
I partially agree with you.
It would be better if users could login via their registered emails beside their usernames.
Hope, the OJS developer team will implement this feaure in the future.
Regards,

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This is an old thread – but I’d like to revive it, hoping that OJS developpers/historians might have some insights about the matter.

Context: I’ve noticed lately that we have quite a few password reset requests on our system – and some of those requests have been escalating and causing us headaches.

Why are there so many requests? My hypothesis is that many OJS users create an account for the sole purpose of submitting a paper ; after the submission, a few weeks go by while they wait for the editorial decision – and meanwhile, they just forget the username they chose.

The idea: I guess choosing a username login for OJS was initially based on the fact that usernames can’t be modified, while email addresses can – but both are unique, and none are used for database operations. So a good way to counter users casualness with their credentials could be to allow a login with either the username or the email address.

Predictables issues: When creating an account, the system would have to ensure that both the email and the username aren’t matching any entry in the database, but also that the email isn’t matching any username. So how should potential matches be dealt with when upgrading an existing OJS instance? Maybe it could be an optional feature that would be activated through the config file?

I wonder : would it be one of those much-more-difficult-to-implement-than-it-looks-like features?

4

Hi @nicolasd,

Have a look at this relevant issue, complete with a PR that’s likely to get merged soon:

Long story short, we’re overdue to revise some of our login/reset/account creation policies (and session management in general), but holding off on most incremental improvements until we’re able to adopt that toolset wholesale from Laravel, thus gaining access to its single-sign-on ecosystem. We haven’t been able to 100% prioritize it yet, but it’s growing in priority.

Meanwhile, I hope the above issue will help!

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

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Thanks @asmecher ! You folks are always miles ahead – and congrats for the release of 3.4!

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Alec, could you update me on where this stands using email in place of username for login? I have TWO people on separate journals request this today.

Thanks!!

8

Hi @radjr,

#8871 was first released in OJS/OMP/OPS 3.4.0-4. You can find that in the sidebar under “Milestone”.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

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Thanks Alec, is there a way to back that into 3.3.x? The consultant that did our 2.4.8.5 to 3.3.0.x upgrade keeps trying to dissuade us from upgrading to 3.4. How do we determine what may break on the upgrade? This is the major laravel and PHP 8.0 upgrade right? Thank you!

10

Hi @radjr,

You’re welcome to try backporting the implementation to 3.3.0 if you’ve got someone handy with PHP. The technical details on changes from 3.3 to 3.4 are in the 3.4 Release Notebook.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team