[Proposal related to my citizen research on the meaning of “open source” and associated preprint « Open Source 2.0: From Open Source Software to Open Source Resources? »]
Many open resources provide the right to modify through licenses without the ability to do so because of the lack of source files. Similarly to arXiv, I suggest to create a dedicated section to handle source files of final document(s)/galleys. You already distinguish editable/non-editable format, this would be about providing these editable elements.
Why a dedicated section ?
While wondering how you handle these source files, I found the production section in the workflow.
As I’m not a user of OJS and with my understanding, it seems that source files can be already provided, “OJS allows users to upload almost any kind of file”. The problem in providing source files is therefore not technical but cultural one, as open access is not really about the ability to edit collaboratively research.
A dedicated section would create the affordance to incitate user to provide them.
How useful it would be ?
For now I don’t know. It’s still not part of the culture to manipulate sources files post-publication by external people to improve resources, which are usually in a kind of final state.
But, versioning is slowly taking shape, where we may progressively move towards more evolutive article. With increasingly more collaboration through new practices in open science. I also believe we may move beyond research article, a format inherited from traditional printing practices which is probably not all that remarkable given the capabilities of digital technology, but that’s another discussion.
This access to source files could support emerging practices in open science. OJS would then become more fully an open source tool!
