We (a small academic French-speaking publisher based in Geneva) plan to resort to OJS3 for one of our journal. We are presently testing the last version: 3.1. The journal will be displayed online in PDF & HTML.
As we are dealing with a classical journal still depending on print subscriptions, articles are not supposed to be open access, at least during a 2 or 3 years period of embargo. Within this period, access to PDF & HTML should then be restricted, except for some specific cases (namely all the book reviews or editorials as well as articles depending on open access policies) for which a direct access to the full-text need to be provided.
So far, we are not aiming at running online subscriptions, but we are looking for a technical solution making it easy to manage accesses article per article so that individuals may access for a fee to the HTML & PDF versions of any articles not available in open access – but not to the whole restricted journal’s content at once, as it would be the case with an online subscription.
Such a « pay-per-view » option did already exist in the previous versions of OJS, if I am not mistaken. The last version of OJS3 makes it further possible to manage subscription fees and to mix open and restricted content (for subscribers), so as to switch eventually to open access after a while. But what about a pay-per-view plugin?
OJS3.1 still enables to manage « reader fees », in the « payment type »’s section, by indicating the price of one article of one issue per unit (purchase issue & purchase article). It seems however not to be supported any longer. Isn’t it?
Then how could we implement such a paywall for our journal without dealing with subscription? Is there any existing plugin that could be of some help in that purpose? Or do we necessarily need to develop it specifically for OJS3 by ourselves?
Many thanks in advance for your help.