Separate domain per journal and DOI

[szmigieldesign]

Hello,

I have three questions regarding an OJS installation I’m working on. Two journals are going to be published on one OJS platform - both of them will use DOI functionality and each of them will use separate domain. So far I have successfully installed OJS multiple times and once even configured fourteen journals on one system, but I never had a situation with different journals using different domains in one OJS installation.

Regarding this particular system, my questions are:

1. Are there any custom rewrite rules required in OJS root folder’s .htaccess file for per journal domain routing? I understand that I can map different domains per journal in OJS config file and that all domains need to point to OJS root folder in virtual host config, but is there anything else? Will it work out of the box?
2. As far as I understand this configuration, apart from having separate domains per each journal published I also need third domain in order to access OJS index? Wouldn’t it be better to create two OJS instances, one per journal in order to avoid the need for third address just for index?
3. When registering DOI I’ll have to provide OJS index address or journal address?

[ctgraham]

A preliminary question would be whether or not you want the two journals to know about each other. A single OJS install will share its user base, and that shared user base is probably the biggest factor in determining if you want one installation or two.

If you want one installation, in a multidomain configuration for OJS you will probably have an Apache virtualhost for each domain, and the mod_rewrite configuration will probably live there. “Out of the box” (without mod_rewrite or similar), you can configure OJS with multiple base_urls in config.inc.php, but they will need to reference the journal shortname in the URL, which is usually undesirable:
http://journal1.domain.tld/index.php/journal1/index/
and
http://scholar.domain.tld/index.php/journal2/index/
(In this case, the index could be available from both http://journal1.domain.tld/index.php/index/index/ and http://scholar.domain.tld/index.php/index/index/)

With mod_rewrite, see a similar conversation here:

Please, How To Direct Single Journal To Web Root (http://journalpage.com) instead of (http://journalpage.com?index.php/ojs)

Sorry, this is going to be technical. This tends to be one of the more complicated subjects in configuring OJS. The typical solution is to use Apache’s mod_rewrite ( mod_rewrite - Apache HTTP Server Version 2.2 ) in concert with OJS’s restful_urls ( https://pkp.sfu.ca/support/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2616&start=30 ) configuration. There are gotchas in the HOWTO’s description depending on your Apache version: http://amandine.aupetit.info/135/apache2-mod_rewrite/ We really ought to have an up…

OJS will register DOIs based on the base_url overrides (or, failing base_url overrides, whatever the currently accessing URL is), so there is no special setup to that.

[szmigieldesign]

Thank you for a very quick answer. We haven’t decided if a single user base is needed in this case. I’m also wondering about registering those journals with Crossref in case when there are two different domains and two separate OJS installs. Which URL should be provided during registration process?

Also, what about the main OJS journal listing in case when there are multiple journals installed in one OJS instance - do I need a third address just for index?

[ctgraham]

When an article is registered with CrossRef via the plugin’s web interface, OJS will use the domain name that is currently being used to access the journal by the web browser. When an article is registered with CrossRef via a scheduled task initiated by cron, the base_url settings in config.inc.php will be used to determine the domain.

You could configure this with a dedicated domain for the site index, or leave the site index off of one of the two journal domains, or the site index can sit off of both of the journal domains. Each option depends on your config.inc.php base_url[] settings and on your mod_rewrite rules.

[drugurkocak]

Hi @szmigieldesign,

Short time ago, I started a project about publishing multiple journals having individual domains on single OJS 3 installation.

Although I read many documents, I couldn’t handle it, but a freelancer programmer wrote the right code for it.

You may see test site here:

https://www.akademisyen.xyz

I can’t share his code here because of my respect, but you can reach him at jignesh.prajapati10@gmail.com. I can say that it is technically possible to remove index.php and journal path, and publish each journal on its individual domain like an enterprise publishing company. I couldn’t test the DOI Registration plugin yet since we register DOIs via a third party reseller. I will be very pleased if you share your experience on DOI registration using this method, and I hope that helps you too. A great thanks to OJS developers.
Regards,