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README.md

===================================
=== Open Journal Systems
=== The Public Knowledge Project
=== Version: 3.3.0
=== GIT tag: 3_3_0-2
=== Release date: February 1, 2021
===================================

About

Open Journal Systems (OJS) has been developed by the Public Knowledge Project. For general information about OJS and other open research systems, visit the PKP web site at http://pkp.sfu.ca/.

License

OJS is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3. See the file docs/COPYING for the complete terms of this license.

Third parties are welcome to modify and redistribute OJS in entirety or parts according to the terms of this license. PKP also welcomes patches for improvements or bug fixes to the software.

System Requirements

Recommended server requirements:

  • PHP >= 7.3
  • MySQL >= 4.1 or PostgreSQL >= 9.5
  • Apache >= 1.3.2x or >= 2.0.4x or Microsoft IIS 6
  • Operating system: Any OS that supports the above software, including Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows

As PKP does not have the resources to test every possible combination of software versions and platforms, no guarantee of correct operation or support is implied. We welcome feedback from users who have deployed OJS on systems other than those listed above.

Recommended Configuration

A secure deployment can be best achieved by using the following policies:

  • Dedicate a database to OJS; use unique credentials to access it. Configure this database to perform automated backups on a regular basis. Perform a manual backup when upgrading or performing maintenance.

  • Configure OJS (config.inc.php) to use SHA1 hashing rather than MD5.

  • Configure OJS (config.inc.php) to use force_login_ssl so that authenticated users communicate with the server via HTTPS.

  • Install OJS so that the files directory is NOT a subdirectory of the OJS installation and cannot be accessed directly via the web server. Restrict file permissions as much as possible. Automated backups of this directory should be roughly synchronized with database backups.

Installation

Please review this document and the RELEASE document prior to installing OJS. If you encounter problems, please also see the FAQ document in this directory.

To install OJS:

  1. Extract the OJS archive to the desired location in your web documents directory.

  2. Make the following files and directories (and their contents) writeable (i.e., by changing the owner or permissions with chown or chmod):

    • config.inc.php (optional -- if not writable you will be prompted to manually overwrite this file during installation)
    • public
    • cache
    • plugins (for plugin installation via the web interface)

  3. Create a directory to store uploaded files (submission files, etc.) and make this directory writeable. It is recommended that this directory be placed in a non-web-accessible location (or otherwise protected from direct access, such as via .htaccess rules).

  4. Open a web browser to http://yourdomain.com/path/to/ojs/ and follow the on-screen installation instructions.

    Alternatively, the command-line installer can be used instead by running the command php tools/install.php from your OJS directory. (Note: with the CLI installer you may need to chown/chmod the public and uploaded files directories after installation, if the Apache user is different from the user running the tool.)

  5. Recommended additional steps post-installation:

    • Review config.inc.php for additional configuration settings
    • Review the FAQ document for frequently asked technical and server configuration questions.

Upgrading

See docs/UPGRADE.md for information on upgrading from previous OJS releases.

Localization

To add support for other languages, the following sets of XML files must be localized and placed in an appropriately named directory (using ISO locale codes, e.g. fr_FR, is recommended):

  • locale/en_US
  • lib/pkp/locale/en_US
  • docs/manual/en
  • registry/locale/en_US
  • plugins/[plugin category]/[plugin name]/locale, where applicable

The only critical files that need translation for the system to function properly are found in locale/en_US, lib/pkp/locale/en_US, and registry/locale/en_US.

New locales must also be added to the file registry/locales.xml, after which they can be installed in the system through the site administration web interface.

Translations can be contributed back to PKP for distribution with future releases of OJS.

Scheduled Tasks

OJS supports a mechanism to execute a variety of tasks at scheduled times (such as automatic sending of reminder notification emails).

To enable support for using scheduled tasks, edit your config.inc.php and set the scheduled_tasks setting to On, and set up your operating system to periodically execute (as the same user your webserver is running under) the PHP script found at tools/runScheduledTasks.php in your OJS directory:

On *nix operating systems, this can be done by adding a simple cron task:

# crontab -e www
0 * * * *	php /path/to/ojs/tools/runScheduledTasks.php

In this example the script would be executed every hour.

On Windows XP systems, this can be done by using the Windows Task Scheduler:

  1. From the Control Panel, double-click on Scheduled Tasks.
  2. Right-click within the Scheduled Tasks window and choose: New > Scheduled Task
  3. Under the Task tab, in the Run field, enter: php c:\path\to\ojs\tools\runScheduledTasks.php
  4. You will also be asked to specify the folder to start this task in (which will usually be the folder that PHP was installed into) and the user under which the task will be executed as.
  5. Under Schedule tab and the Settings tab, you can more specifically configure the task. For example, you can choose start and end dates for this scheduled task and also how often to execute this task.

If using the scheduled tasks script, it is recommended that the script be set up to execute at least once per day.

Note that using the script also requires you to have the PHP command-line interpreter installed on your server.

Third-party Libraries

Contact/Support

The forum is the recommended method of contacting the team with technical issues.