Release notes: Journal platform (2025)
Notes on the live releases to the Ubiquity platform are listed below, including bug fixes, new features, and enhancements to existing functionality. Bug fixes specific to individual installations (e.g. a journal) are not listed. The dates given are for the end of the development sprint cycle, not the exact date that the release was completed.
Release notes for other years can be found on our central Release Notes page.
See our Release notes: Book & Press platform for similar updates on our book and press platform.
2 December 2025
| ID | Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement | Title | Description |
| OJS-2122 | Enhancement | Accessibility improvement | WCAG Guideline 2.4.7 states that 'Focus Visible (Any keyboard operable user interface has a mode of operation where the keyboard focus indicator is visible.)'. Some of the pages on the journal frontend did not fully adhere to this when tabbing. This has been updated to match the accessibility requirement. |
| OJS-2136 | Enhancement | Author search | The journal article list allows the reader to search for more publications from a specific author either within the journal or on Google Scholar. The search criteria has been updated for the in-journal search to produce more accurate results. |
| Various | Bug fixes | Minor platform upgrade bug fixes | Following the platform upgrades, the below bugs were fixed:
|
18 November 2025
| ID | Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement | Title | Description |
| OJS-2330 | New function | Advanced search | The search function for each journal now includes an advanced search function, where the reader is able to target search terms from specific fields of metadata (e.g. title, abtract, authors etc), dictate how the search term should be processed (e.g. exact phrase, any of the words, exclude the words etc), and also and also the ability to build multiple search queries (e.g. search for an articles with a title that includes the word 'lion' AND an author with the name 'Ersmark'). The results create a unique URL, meaning that complex searches can also be linked to. e.g. the above example. |
| OJS-2346 | New function | Bounced email log | Journal Manager's and Editor's will soon see an 'Email Status' option in the left hand settings menu for the OJS editorial system. This page will show a table of all emails sent out by the journal platform, along with the status of whether that email was successfully delivered or whether a bounce message was received. If an editor wishes to check whether emails have been delivered, they can filter this table to check on email status. If the email bounced, they know that the recipient has not seen the email and another method of communication should be found and/or their user profile needs updating to the correct email address. |
| OJS-2353 | Enhancement | 'Recommend-only' permissions | Journals on OJS 3.4 reported problems with the new restrictions around 'recommend-only' permissions, where a Section Editor was not able to start a new round of review. After discussion with PKP, Ubiquity has submitted a pull request to core OJS so that this restriction can be removed. PRs can be found at: |
| OJS-2352 | Enhancement | Update to accessibility link | The footer for each journal now points to the new knowledge base article detailing the accessibility statement for the site. |
| Various | Bug fixes | Minor 3.4. updates | Minor issues were fixed for upgraded 3.4 journals, including:
|
7 November 2025
| ID | Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement | Title | Description |
| OJS-2246 | Enhancement | Website update speed | Edits to some website pages sometimes had a delay between the edit being made and the edit displaying on the website. Caching processes have been updated so that updates should be reflected as they are made. |
| OJS-2336 | Enhancement | ORCID display | If an author has an associated ORCID profile then this is now displayed more prominently on the publication page. Previously it was hidden within other author data. |
| Various | Bug fix | 3.4 upgrade refinements | Journals on the 3.4 platform reported some minor issues which have been addressed. These include:
|
| OJS-2334 | Enhancement | Right click options (OJS core contribution) | OJS 3.5 onwards removed right click options from within the Journal Manager settings (e.g. copy, paste etc). This update will bring the options back. Core contribution available at https://github.com/pkp/pkp-lib/issues/11986 |
21 October 2025
| ID | Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement | Title | Description |
| Various | Bug fixes | Various bug fixes relating to the upgraded 3.4 journals | Upgrades were paused to focus on resolving a number of minor bugs, including:
|
| OJS-2315 | Bug fix | Retain publication dates when re-publishing an issue (core OJS contribution) | It was discovered that when unpublishing an issue and then republishing it, the articles within the issue reset their publication dates. This was inconsistent with user expectations. The core OJS contribution has been submitted so that article dates will no longer reset in such a way. See https://github.com/pkp/ojs/pull/5148 |
9th September 2025
| ID | Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement | Title | Description |
| OJS-2269 | New feature | On-screen help widget | The editorial system and select frontend website pages now include a help 'widget' in the bottom right corner, allowing users to access help articles, ask an AI chatbot for answers, and log support tickets, all without leaving the journal webpage (editorial system function only available after 3.4 upgrade). View the Contact or Author Guidelines page of any journal to view the new widget. |
| OJS-2268 | Enhancement | Support platform links | The 'Help Centre' & 'Latest Updates' buttons in the journal editorial system have been updated to point to the new Knowledge Base (https://journals.support.ubiquity.pub/). |
| OJS-2240 | Bug fix | 'Betterpassword' Plugin | The plugin enforcing higher password requirements included bugs. The Ubiquity team has fed fixes back into the public plugin |
26th August
| ID | Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement | Title | Description |
| OJS-2226 | Bug fix | Carousel image not scrolling | Journals with multiple carousel images on the hompeage reported that they were not scrolling in the correct order. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-2245 | Bug fix | Re-publishing galley files | Galley PDFs were showing a permissions error is the original file was replaced. This has now been fixed |
12th August
| ID | Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement | Title | Description |
| OJS-2156 | New Feature (3.5) | 'Email All' button | The function allowing editors to email all contributors at any time (see OJS-1391, below) has been submitted to core OJS 3.5 |
| OJS-2193 | Bug fix | XML/HTML error during issue publication | A bug was fixed where the HTML didn't render for the full text of an article if previously scheduled within an issue. The HTML should now render regardless of the publication workflow. |
| OJS-2211 | Bug fix | Reviewer reminder email links | Some reviewers were receiving reminder emails with broken links to the review task. These links have now been fixed. |
15 July 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1414 | New Feature | Reference display for PDF-only articles | The References setting in the article metadata within OJS is now supported on the frontend website. If a journal publishes an article without an XML/HTML galley then any content added to the Publication > References metadata tab will be displayed on the article’s publication page. |
| OJS-2183 | Enhancement | Reviewed security settings | Revised and implemented changes to security settings |
| OJS-2184 | Bug fix | Filter menu open as default | The filter menu on the submission list page was no longer open as default. This has now been fixed so that the filters will display when the page loads. |
1 July 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-2113 | Enhancement | Allow multiple taxonomies | Multiple custom taxonomy flags can now be assigned to each submission, rather than being limited to one single flag. The taxonomy flags enable journals to categories the publications beyond the article type (available on 3.4 onwards). |
| OJS-1878 | Enhancement | Scheduled removal of 'incomplete' submissions | An automated process has been put in place that will remove submissions marked as 'incomplete' from the submission lists. Once a month all journals will be checked for any incomplete submissions that are older than 28 days old. If such submissions exist, they will be removed to help keep the submission lists as clean as possible. |
| OJS-2179 | Bug fix | Author name display on submission list | A bug was introduced that mean that author names were not displaying correctly on the editor's submission list. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-2185 | Bug fix | Batch publication file availability | A bug was discovered that was preventing some galley files from being unavailable to the journal readers if it were published under a specific batch publication workflow. This has now been fixed. |
Jun 17, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-2123 | Enhancement | Accessibility: Keyboard focus | The keyboard focus has been improved so that users should find it easier to navigate around the site. |
| OJS-2103 | Enhancement | Open Peer Review workflow | The backend production system has been updated to support the newly introduced open/published peer review option that journals now have from the Ubiquity production team. |
| OJS-2138 | Enhancement | ‘Email all’ authors function added to OJS 3.4 | Following OJS-1391 (below). The new function to contact all authors via the Contributor tab will now be available on the upcoming Ubiquity OJS 3.4 upgraded platform. |
| OJS-2172 | Enhancement | Update to article XSL | The markup format and display of citations has been edited to support additional citation formats. |
Jun 3, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-2142 | New feature | Accessibility link in footer | A setting has been added into OJS allowing the journal manager to add a URL pointing to the journal’s Accessibility Statement. When entered, this link will appear automatically in the footer of the public journal webpages. As default, the link will point to Ubiquity’s accessibility statement, which includes the technical details as well as contact information regarding accessibility issues. This is a requirement of the European Accessibility Act. |
| OJS-2155 | Enhancement | Licence metadata | A refinement of how licence metadata is provided has been completed to ensure that it remains machine readable and fully indexable. |
| OJS-2149 | Enhancement | Security improvement | Security upgrade as part of regular review and improvement protocol. |
May 20, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1391 | New Feature | ‘Email all’ function | It is now possible to email all authors within a submission outside of decision emails. Rather than needing to be listed as a ‘participant’ in the editorial workflow (i.e. normally only the corresponding author), the editor is now able to send an email to all of the authors/contributors whenever they need to. Editors can access this function via the Publication > Contributors tab. The list of contributors now includes an ‘Email all authors’ button. (from version 3.3.0-20-33 onwards). |
| OJS-1267 & OJS-1950 | Enhancement | Security improvements | Various security upgrades as part of regular review and improvement protocol. |
| OJS-2124 | Enhancement | Accessibility improvement | A recent accessibility review revealed an error when a users zoomed the articles page to 200%, with some text overlapping so it was less readable. This has ben fixed so that the zoom does not compromise readability of the content. |
| OJS-2125 | Bug fix | Article filters | Filtering by multiple Collections or Taxonomies was no longer functional, with only the most recent selection being displayed. This has been fixed so that all selected filters now show. |
| OJS-2109 | Enhancement | Reviewer identifier in download file | An inconsistency was discovered between the identifiers given to a reviewer within OJS and the downloaded reviewer form when the article went through multiple rounds of review. This has been fixed so that the downloaded review form IDs match those within OJS. |
| OJS-1916 | Bug fix | PKP Preservation Network | A error was occurring that was preventing a minority of publications being sent into the PKP Preservation Network. This has now been resolved. |
| OJS-1709 | Bug fix | Participant assigment lists | Some journals we experiencing a display issue when assigning participants to a submission, whereby the assignment list did not display the full number of possible users. This has been corrected so that all users with the relevant roles will be listed. |
May 7, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-833 | New Feature | Anonymisation of submitted files | Users will often forget to remove identiying metadata from the files that they submit to the journal, meaning that anonymous review may be compromised. The Ubiquity system will now automatically strip out the name field in the file properties for files uploaded during the author submission, reviewer task and author revisions process, meaning that the editor no longer has to check and remove the data. [available from OJS 3.4] |
| OJS-1070 | Enhancement | Added instruction during production | A note has been added to the Publication tab regarding metadata updates during the production stage, reminding editors/journal managers that production teams will need to be informed of edits if the galley files are already being created. |
| OJS-2102 | Bug fix | Strip unwanted formatting from titles | Formatting was being retained if a title was copied and pasted from another location, causing display problems within OJS. This has been fixed so that unsupported formatting is now automatically removed. |
| OJS-2104 | Enhancement | Update to the Related Articles tab | TrendMD, the provider for the Related Articles list, changed how data is provided into the article page, resulting in a code change to accommodate the difference. |
Apr 22, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-2080 | Bug fix | Assignment privileges error | When moving between different user assignment roles, some of the permissions were being retained when changing the user group, leading to an error when the assignment was completed. This has been fixed via a core OJS pull request so that the correct role settings are assigned every time. |
| OJS-2081 | Enhancement | HTML option to Copyright Notice | Native OJS doesn’t have an HTML editor for the copyright field. This has now been added to add to the flexibility of the setting and aid journal managers. |
| OJS-2095 | Bug fix | Announcement links | Links to announcements from the homepage did not link to the correct part of the page if the title included diacritic characters. This has now been fixed, so that the link always points to the correct part of the announcement page. |
| OJS-2098 | Bug fix | Sword library plugin | Contribution to the SWORD plugin to correct a bug that caused the editorial workflow to break if the plugin was configured in a certain way. |
Mar 25, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-2062 | New feature | Editor workload tracking | Completion of the core OJS contribution that will surface the editorial workload when assigning submissions to an editor. See
Track Editor Workload While Assigning Participants · Issue #9999 · pkp/pkp-lib for code contribution (OJS 3.5) |
| OJS-2066 | Enhancement | Update to article display | This XSL update adds a new method of changing the header. It also adds aria-label for notes. |
| OJS-2082 | Bug fix | Expandable quick links | The quick links on the journal pages should have allowed heading levels to expand up to heading level 3, but this had been unintentionally disabled. The function is now back so that the quick links will expand the hierarchy of level headings. |
Mar 11, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-2053 | Enhancement | Additional ‘share’ buttons | The article publication page has had additional ‘share’ options provided to the reader, helping to disseminate the content. The reader can now easily share via:
|
| OJS-1942 | Enhancement | Website update speed | The frontend websites previously had some cached information, meaning that updates sometimes took a short time to be reflected to the public. This delay has now been removed so that updates should be reflected quickly. |
| OJS-2060 | Bug fix | ‘null’ author names | When an author only has one name, the Issue page previously displayed their last name as ‘null’ rather than leave blank. This has now been fixed, so that the page displays the correct and full author name. |
| PLAT-1722 | Bug fix | Popular articles list | A bug was discovered where the ‘popular articles’ list on the homepage displayed incorrect articles. This has now been fixed. The criteria for how the list is created can be found in our Knowledge Base. |
Feb 25, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1854 | Enhancement | OJS submission list loading time | OJS submission lists now load around 100% quicker than prior to our latest update |
| OJS-1991 | Bug Fix | Default licence data | License URL or licence name are now required when ‘other' licence option is selected. This avoids data errors downstream - e.g. the Crossref export. If the 'Other’ licence is now selected, a name and URL are now mandatory. |
| OJS-2016 & OJS-2017 | New Feature | ‘Non-journal’ mode | A function has been added into the Journal Manager setting (Website > Appearance > Advanced ) that will remove journal-specific terminology on the public website. e.g. mentions of ‘article’, ‘issue’ and ‘volume’ will be removed, if enabled. This allows OJS users to publish output that is less in line with traditional journal formats. |
| OJS-2042 & OJS-2058 | Bug Fix / Enhancement | Review form download | Two updates were made to the ability to download the completed review form:
|
| OJS-2048 | Bug Fix | Submitting to collections | The ability to assign an article to a collection upon submission was temporarily unavailable. This has now been restored so that authors can make the assignment during the submission process. |
| OJS-2051 | Enhancement | Update to XSL (article display) | The article XSL has been updated to support:
|
Feb 12, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1970 | Enhancement | Accessibility review and implementation | A review was conducted of specific accessibility requirements for the journal sites, with minor improvements being made to aid screen readers. |
| OJS-2024 | Enhancement | Article text rendering update | An update to the article CSS was implemented to prevent line breaks after and before parentheses |
| OJS-2039 | Enhancement | 3.4 support for Bluesky and Mastodon | Following OJS-1995, support for Bluesky and Mastodon have also been added to the upcoming 3.4 journal platform. |
Jan 28, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-987 | New Feature | Add images to announcements | Pull requests have been made to core OJS 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5 that will allow journals to include images within their announcements. |
| OJS-2040 | Bug Fix | Typesetting comments | Typesetting comments were not saving prior to sending the article to the Ubiquity production team. This has now been fixed. |
| OJS-2045 | Bug Fix | OpenID plugin | A bug was discovered in the OpenID plugin. A pull request has been submitted to the plugin maintainer, so that the fix can be merged into the public plugin |
Jan 17, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1995 | New Feature | Bluesky and Mastodon | The Website > Appearance > Social settings now include Mastodon and Bluesky options. If a URL is added to either of these settings, the relevant button will appear on the journal homepage, linking out to the social media account. |
| OJS-1981 | Enhancement | (C)LOCKSS manifest page update | Two updates were made to the (C)LOCKSS manifest page to improve data collection from LOCKSS and CLOCKSS, to aid journal preservation. |
| OJS-2002 | Enhancement | Update to article XSL | The article display XSL now includes the option to include Motion Film reference format and tables with custom column widths |
| OJS-2020 | Bug Fix | Unavailable PDF error | A bug was discovered whereby if articles were assigned to an unpublished issue, subsequently had Galley files uploaded, and then the issue was published, the PDF files would be unavailable to the general public. This has been fixed so that all Galley files are made public when the issue is published. |
| OJS-2023 | Bug Fix | Funder plugin | The funder plugin stopped working, so that authors were not able to assign a funder from the registry during the submission process. This has been fixed. |
Jan 3, 2025
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1979 | Enhancement | Upgrade to OJS 3.3.0-20 | Upgrade to all journals to a recent release of OJS, bringing additional security and stability. |
| OJS-1987 | Bug fix | Issue cover images for multilingual journals | A website bug was discovered where some journal cover images were not displaying on the issue archive page. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1988 | Bug fix | Issue ordering error | The ordering of issues on the archive page was taking too long to update when changed. This has been updated so that updates to the order will be reflected more immediately. |
| OJS-2006 | Bug fix | Review form download | PDF exports of review forms were not working in some occasions. This has now been fixed. |