Workflow

PsychOpen uses Open Journal Systems (OJS), an open-source software for the streamlined management and publishing of peer-reviewed academic journals. OJS is developed by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) and specifically designed to reduce the amount of time and effort to deal with clerical tasks. Many steps of the process are automated: distributing manuscript copies, assigning manuscripts to section editors or reviewers, reminding reviewers of due dates, etc. To increase the visibility of journals, OJS offers easy solutions to integrate metadata for metadata harvesters or search engines.

OJS also uses a comprehensive roles system which includes journal manager, editors, section editors, reviewer, authors, etc. and helps the journal members to divide the work between different users and assign workflows:

The journal manager sets up and configures a journal and assigns specific roles to users (e.g., editor, reviewer, or author).

Authors can submit their articles directly to the journal's homepage, track the progress of their submissions, communicate with editors, reviewers, and readers, and submit revised versions of their manuscripts.

Editors can download submitted manuscripts for an initial check, assign suitable papers to section editors or reviewers, oversee the review procedure (if desired, a multistaged one), rate reviewers' working styles, and announce their editorial decision on the acceptance or rejection of a manuscript. Moreover, they can advise section, layout and copy editors as well as proofreaders. They can also contact authors, schedule publications, organize the table of contents, and publish the final version of a journal issue.

Section editors are responsible for the editorial process in a particular section of a journal (e.g., editorials, articles, book reviews).

Layout editors, copy editors, and proofreaders see to the stylistic and grammatical accuracy of the content and control the visual appearance of an accepted manuscript. Some stages of this process are completed offline with the help of special software, but OJS will support the coordination and communication process.

Reviewers can download manuscripts from the journal's homepage, accept or reject reviewing requests, submit their review reports, add comments, and communicate with (section) editors and authors.

For a detailed visual overview on the OJS workflow see this OJS workflow chart from the PKP documentation.