Starting Out 3.0 or 2.8?

Software Support
1

Hey guys,

We are just starting out on OJS and was wondering if we should go ahead with version 3.0, or use 2.8 instead? We will be doing some customizations, but maybe not a whole lot - more to the look and feel. In your opinions due to pros and cons, where were you start?

Thank you!

Cody

2

Hi codydf,

We are in a somewhat similar situation. And we are leaning towards 3.0. Here are some of our reasons:

  1. New features. Many of our journal staff members who work in 2.* have always demanded those new features like setting up custom user roles, multilingual author names, which will only be available in OJS3.
  2. Programming. Some of our journal staff members demanded some customization on a ‘code level’. We had to deny, since all such customizations might not be compatible with future versions (3.0). So it is reasonable for us to switch to 3.0 as early as possible.
  3. Design. Some of our people were not satisfied with theme design possibilities in OJS2 and preferred to wait for OJS3, which should be much more flexible in this respect… And also compatible with mobile devices. And again they would like to retain the same design once and for all…
3

Thank you for the reply Ph_We. Have you had a chance to really test OJS 3.0 yet? I have a little testing and found a few issues (bugs), but nothing major yet. I agree with you on the new features though. It is a lot more clean looking.

4

Hi all,

Especially for a new open-access publication, I’d suggest starting with 3.0. There will definitely be some bugs as it’s such a new release, but post them here and we’ll do our best to address them quickly. Note that 3.0 doesn’t yet have support for subscription-based journals, so if that’s a must-have, you might want to wait until that feature is included (currently planned for OJS 3.1) before migrating.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

5

I’m testing it since the release. The same here: some minor bugs, nothing serious so far.
But you should also keep in mind that there might be some features, you might need, which were available OJS2 (e.g., some custom built plugins) and will not be available in OJS3, at least for some time.
I know, we would not need those, so I am ready to say goodbye to OJS2 :slight_smile:

6

As this is quite important issue for us, could you please take a look at it:

Thank you very much.

Anna