Re: platforms that work and cost little

[bernd-christoph.kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de]

Dear Anthony,

frankly, I do not understand why you insist on arguing (or giving
the perception) that PKP OJS has something to conceal ("Why is
there this secrecy about all these 800 journals"). It should be
pretty obvious why HighWire, Allen Press and PKP OJS are
different. The reason is simple and has been stated many times in
forums and on the website itself. The software is open source and
freely downloaded, so no one is forced to tell PKP what they have
done with it. Also, only a minority of journals is hosted by PKP.
So 900 journals (current estimate as of March 2007) can only be a
rough estimate. Also, not everyone using it or giving it a try
will necessarily want PKP to publicize it - although many want.
For them there is the list at the PKP OJS website, and everyone
is free to register their own journals there. Currently, 134
journals are listed there. Some or the entries are collections of
journals, the largest being RACO (Revistes Catalanes amb Acces
Obert) with 122 journals, and AJOL (African Journals online) with
271 journals, this brings the count of registered journals
already up to 525+ To this you can add the 141 brazilian journals
(-8 already included above) at ibict,
http://www.ibict.br/secao.php?cat=SEER plus half of the 100 other
journals listed there (the rest again being already included in
the list at PKP), this brings it up to 715. Vietnam Journals
Online, linked to from the PKP OJS FAQ, adds another 14 journals,
Nepal Journals online another 23, and 12 journals are hosted on
the Scholarly Exchange platform (there may be others not hosted
by them and not included in any of the above lists), now we have
already 764+. From this you can already infer that this is indeed
an empowerment tool. And if you are inclined to look who is just
tapping into muddy water, starting to use OJS, or having trouble
with it, have a look at the PKP support forum,
http://pkp.sfu.ca/support/forum/index.php. OJS Discussion and OJS
Support each have about 500 topics and 2000 posts now, so this is
a lively community. If you'd like to see the bug reports, they
maintain it with Bugzilla, open for everyone to see.

I hope this finally settles the discussion "Where are those 800+
(or now 900+) journals" ... And which journals are
well-established? - judge for yourself. It's not up to PKP to
decide that.

Further links:
Review of some peer-review management packages
Kam Shapiro, Bibliography and Summary: Electronic Peer Review Management,
University of Michigan Scholarly Publishing Office. Undated.
http://spo.umdl.umich.edu/monthly/peerreview.html

Peter Suber, in his blog Open Access News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_08_27_fosblogarchive.html#115677485=
295699332
adds here two comments (with links):

    1. This review doesn't cover any of the open-source packages.
To add them to your own review of the available tools, start with
Open Journal Systems (the leader in this niche), but also take a
look at DPubS, GAPworks, Hyperjournal, ePublishing Toolkit,
OpenACS, SOPS, and TOPAZ.
    2. From an OA perspective, the chief benefit of peer-review
management software is the way it automates the clerical tasks of
conducting peer review, the primary cost of runnning a
peer-reviewed OA journal. Of course it doesn't touch editorial
judgment, but that is typically performed by editors and referees
who (like authors) donate their labor.

Best regards,
Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Stuttgart University Library

----- Urspruengliche Nachricht -----
Von: Anthony Watkinson <anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com>
Datum: Freitag, Marz 16, 2007 0:59 am
Betreff: Re: platforms that work and cost little

> I do not see why we cannot be given the names of these journals
> especially the ones that are very well established. HighWire
> does. They are not commercial. Allen Press does. Of course the
> naughty commercial publishers do. Why is there this secrecy about
> all these 800 journals.
>
> Anthony