Release Notes: Journals (2023)
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.
Dec 19, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1166 | Bug fix | Quick Submit plugin failures | A bug was reported when using the Quick Submit plugin that was leading to failed new submissions. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1363 | Bug fix | Missing status data | Some stage assignments were missing, or set to NONE when passing from OJS to the Ubiquity infrastructure. This has been updated so that the correct status is logged. |
| OJS-1582 | Enhancement | Sentry profiling | Additional error logs have been added to the OJS platform so that the Ubiquity team see errors reported in real time. |
| OJS-1607 | Enhancement | Donation widget added to CSP exceptions list | The cafdonatewidget has been added to the journal to CSP exceptions list, allowing journal to display the external widget on the journal webpages. See here for the full list of permitted external services that can embed content into. the journal pages. |
| OJS-1611 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high complaince standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1612 | Enhancement | Enhancing SQL queries in API for improved response times | Optimising SQL queries in the journal API for improved response/page loading times. |
Dec 5, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-945 | Enhancement | Disable unused plugins | OJS installations contained a number of plugins that were not being used. These have been removed to increase site speed and remove confusion for journal managers. |
| OJS-991 | Feature | Custom text to issue page | A setting has been created so that custom text can be added to the Issue list on the journal frontend, above the list of cover images. For more information, visit this article in our Knowledge Base. |
| OJS-1601 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high complaince standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1605 | Enhancement | Continued investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | Ongoing work updating plugins that will be required for the OJS 3.4 upgrade |
Nov 21, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1546 | Enhancement | Contribution to Control Public Files plugin | Enhancement to the Control Public Files plugin, which limits the file types permitted for upload in some areas of the system, thus increasing platform security. |
| OJS-1570 | New feature | Latest Updates button | The OJS banner now includes a button titled ‘Latest Updates’, which links to this page, making it easy for journal users to see the latest platform releases. |
| OJS-1588 | Bug fix | CrossRef XML Export Plugin error | The CrossRef XML Export plugin was leading to an error on some journals, which was preventing the export of article data. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1590 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high complaince standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1592 | Enhancement | Supported supplementary file extensions | bbl. files are now supported for supplementary files. |
| OJS-1596 | Bug fix | Contact form error | An error was introduced into the contact form of the journal website, leading to an error message. This has been fixed. |
Nov 7, 2023
*note: due to the email configuration updates, some releases will also need to be delayed. When each journal has the email configuration updated they will also receive the most up to date journal platform, including the below. Until the email configuration is complete some of the below releases may not be available.
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1188 | Enhancement | Update to LOCKSS manifest page | A setting has been added to the Distribution > Archiving setting so that a custom URL can be added that will change the LOCKSS manifest page data. This allows LOCKSS & CLOCKSS to archive the site when the journal frontend is on a different URL to the OJS backend. |
| OJS-1501 | Bug fix | Native XML import/export plugin | The Native XML import/export plugin was crashing and preventing exports. This has been resolved. |
| OJS-1555 | Enhancement | OJS setting speeds | Plugins have been optimised to help improve the saving speed for some settings. |
| OJS-1578 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high complaince standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1583 | Bug fix | H tags in Publication Fees setting | The Publication Fees setting allowed heading tags to be added to the entered content, but the frontend was not creating working links to these. This has now been fixed so that the heading tags create a functional link on the public website (e.g. for Waiver Information). |
| OJS-1587 | Enhancement | Increased speed to download reports | The OJS articles report could take a very long time to download, sometime leading to timing out problems. This has been improved so that reports should download without this problem. |
| OJS-1589 | Enhancement | Issue title displayed | The Issue page (e.g. here) previously displayed a list of all issues in the right column, providing the year, volume and issue data, but not the issue title (if present). The page has now been updated so that if an issue has a title then it will also be displayed in the right column. |
Oct 24, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1517 | Feature | Crossref Reference Linking plugin | The Crossref Reference Linking plugin has been installed, allowing journals who deposit DOIs directly from OJS exports to now include reference data and link them to known DOIs. The above link provides full information. |
| OJS-1521 | Enhancement | Review feedback export function | The recently added function to export completed review forms (see OJS-1462 & OJS-1492, below) has been tweaked so that the ‘author-friendly’ version of the export now does not include the reviewer’s name, so that it does not de-anonymise the review process. The export will now also include the .pdf suffix. |
| OJS-1561 | Enhancement | Email configurations | All journals will have a new email configuration put in place in the coming months. These are being released in stages on a per-journal basis and will give greater deliverability and increased compliance expected configuration standards (e.g. DMARC). The configuration changes will be done on a domain-level, so DNS owners will be contacted when their journal is ready to have the update. |
| OJS-1575 | Bug fix | Unsupported article languages | A bug was found where if an article was published in a language that the website frontend did not support, then the page crashed. This has now been fixed so that the publishing language does not cause a problem for the user language on the frontend. |
Oct 10, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1454 | Bug fix | Submission checklist ordering | The ability to re-order and save the submission checklist has been lost or the save process was often timing out. This has now been fixed. |
| OJS-1476 | Enhancement | Email configuration | Continued work to improve email deliverability by switching to domain-level configuration. |
| OJS-1536 | Enhancement | Update to CSP | Addition of kaltura.com to the Content Security Policy, to allow content hosed on kaltura.com to be embedded in journal pages. The full list of external services authorised on the site can be found here. |
| OJS-1552 | Bug fix | Correction to Author Guidelines | A minority of journals saw errors on their author guideline page due to a recent update. The effected journals have now been reverted to a previous state so that any incorrect information is no longer showing. |
Sep 26, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1487 | Enhancement | Security update | Security update to prevent malicious files from being uploaded |
| OJS-1497 | Enhancement | Removal of ‘Conversations’ setting | Due to changes in the X (formerly Twitter) policy, it is no longer possible to display the X/Twitter feed on the homepage. To avoid confusion, the setting has been removed from the OJS settings. It is still possible to link a X/Twitter account to the journal, which will appear as a button on the homepage. |
| OJS-1508 | Bug fix | PubMed XML Export Plugin error | Fix to the PubMed XML Export Plugin, where the exported XML were not correctly validating, thus preventing some indexing operations. This has now been fixed. |
| OJS-1510 | Enhancement | Security update | Reconfiguation of journal infrastructure to increase security resiliance. |
| OJS-1525 | Bug fix | DOAJ export plugin error | Fix to the DOAJ EXport Plugin, where the exported files were not correctly validating, thus preventing some indexing operations. This has now been fixed. |
| OJS-1531 | Bug fix | Issue when confirming reviews | An unintended consequence of OJS-1462 & OJS-1492 (see below) meant that some review forms showed an error prior to the review feedback being submitted. This has now been fixed. |
| OJS-1538 | Enhancement | MathJax extension | An extension to our Content Security Policy to allow MathJax to load additional extensions, such as boldsymbol. |
Sep 12, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-50 | Feature | Editor records reviewer response | An editor is now able to log the reply to a review invitation on behalf of the reviewer (e.g. if the reviewer emails the editor rather than logs the reply themselves). This has been added as a plugin to the Ubiquity platform, but will be contributed to OJS 3.4. Full instructions here. |
OJS-1462 & OJS-1492 |
Feature | Download completed review forms | An editors is now able to download a completed review form in PDF format, so that they can process it in a more flexible manner (e.g. read it offline, take to editorial board meetings). The setting gives the option to download an ‘author-friendly' version, where the editor-only comments are removed, or the complete form. This has been added as a plugin to the Ubiquity platform, but will be contributed to OJS 3.4. Full instructions here. |
| OJS-1480 | Enhancement | CLOCKSS HTML setting to the frontend | Update to the frontend /about page so that the CLOCKSS preservation service can more easily tell whether it should collect content from the site. |
| OJS-1485 | Enhancement | Update to Suggested Reviewers plugin | Change to the plugin configuration so that it can be set on a journal level. This is a public plugin that can be found here. |
| OJS-1488 | Enhancement | Security upgrades | Added function to limit the types of files, and how can upload them, into a journal, as part of ongoing security assessments. |
OJS-1494 & OJS-1496 |
Enhancement | Continued investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | Ongoing work updating plugins that will be required for the OJS 3.4 upgrade |
| OJS-1507 | Enhancement | Heading tags | A platform-wide update to some frontend journal texts to implement the correct heading HTML tags, to increase accessibility for the site. |
Aug 30, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1308 | Bug fix | Statistics Report email sending when setting is disabled | The monthly email that can be sent to editors was being triggered even when the email had been disabled. This should now have been fixed. |
| OJS-1386 | Bug fix | Invalid DOAJ XML export | The XML file created by the DOAJ export included validation errors. This has been fixed so that the export is now functional. |
| OJS-1463 | Enhancement | Disable all Twitter(X) feeds | Due to changes in Twitter (rebranded as X) policy, it is no longer possible to display the Twitter feed on the journal homepage. All journals have had this setting disabled. |
| OJS-1483 | Enhancement | "allowedUploads" plugin | The "allowedUploads" plugin has been installed on all journals. This restricts what file types can be uploaded by the author during the submission process. |
| Various | Enhancement | Security upgrades | Various edits have been made to the security of the platform. |
Aug 15, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-919 | Enhancement | Multilingual article publication | The journal frontend previously did not support an article that was published in multiple language formats - e.g. the same article published with both English and German metadata (title, abstract, keywords etc). This has been updated so that if an article has multiple language metadata and has these frontend languages enabled then the reader will be able to choose which language to view the publication in. |
| OJS-1172 | Bug fix | Republished galley files not available | Some journals experienced a problem when unpublishing and republishing galley files, with the new files not being make publicly available. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1416 | Bug fix | Not able to add new components | Adding new submission components had broken. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1427 | Bug fix | Become a review button not responding to setting | The OJS setting to add/remove the Become a Reviewer button on the frontend banner wasn’t always being respected, meaning that sometimes it showed when it shouldn’t, or vice versa. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1436 | Bug fix | Continuous loading wheel if email subject is too long | If an email subject included the title, and that title exceeded a certain length, the email would be triggered in OJS but not be received by the intended recipient due to a character limit. This has now been updated so that emails should no longer be limited by this issue. |
| OJS-1453 | Bug fix | Redirect for old OAI feed | Following the journal migration, the new OAI-PMH feed had a different structure from the old one, meaning that external services that were using the feeds no longer received the data. A redirect has now been put in place so that anyone trying to access the old feed structure will automatically be directed to the new, working page. |
| OJS-1455 | Enhancement | Plugin localisation | Updates to the English and German plugins that Ubiquity maintains so that the OJS interface has the correct language headers/terms displayed. |
| OJS-1468 | Bug fix | Remove GA tracking code | Following the move to Plausible.io site tracking. All Google Analytics tracking codes have been removed from the journal frontend. |
| OJS-1474 | Enhancement | Continued investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | Ongoing work updating plugins that will be required for the OJS 3.4 upgrade |
Aug 1, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1438 | Enhancement | Continued investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | Installation of vanilla OJS 3.4 and comparison analysis started. |
| OJS-1460 | Bug fix | Email configuration changes | Updates to the email configuration of some journals as part of continued testing to improve deliverability. |
Jul 4, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1419 | Feature | Add Site Usage dashboard to editor interface | Following the decision to move away from Google Analytics (see here), a plugin has been created to connect the OJS editor interface to site monitoring data, allowing editors and journal managers to see real-time data on how the frontend journal website is being used. See this article in our Knowledge Base for more information. The plugin needs to be manually setup. The process to do so has begun, but will take some weeks until all journals on the Ubiquity platform have the plugin setup and enabled. If journal editors/managers are not currently able to access the |
| OJS-1174 | Bug fix | Redirect to support old LOCKSS manifest URL | The migration to the new journal platform led to the URL for the LOCKSS manifest page changing, leading to existing links breaking. These are now supported, with the old URLs now redirecting to the new one. |
| OJS-1380 | Enhancement | Add issue title to Current Issue button | The Current Issue button on the journal homepage previously displayed year, volume and issue data didn’t include title information, if the issue had been given one. This has been updated so that the button will now also display an issue title, if one has been supplied. |
| OJS-1422 | Bug fix | Become a reviewer button fix | The implementation of the Become a Reviewer button on the journal banner (see below, OJS-533) caused a minor error, as the journal logo was not being displayed on the resulting page. This has now been fixed. |
| OJS-1437 | Enhancement | Collection names font size | The window displaying the title of a collection will now resize the title font if it is above 60 characters in length, helping to ensure that the title is displayed in full and not truncated. |
| OJS-1425 | Enhancement | Initial investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | The first steps have been taken to prepare for the upgrade to OJS 3.4, which was released during June 2023. |
| OJS-1428 | Bug fix | Suggested Reviewers / Quick Submit error | An error within the Suggested Reviewers plugin was causing the Quick Submit form to fail, making it impossible to use. This has now been fixed so that both plugins are fully functional. |
Jun 20, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-514 | Feature | Prior journal title in citation export | It is now possible to log when a journal has previously published under a different title, so that the back content retains the historically correct title data in the citation details instead of the current journal title. This is a centrally administered setting, not in OJS, and thus needs to be inputted by the journal’s account manager at Ubiquity. |
| OJS-1426 | Feature | Author names added to peer review assignment form | Feedback from editors showed that assigning reviewers was more difficult due to the fact that the submission author list was not visible in OJS at the time reviewer assignments were made, making errors such as competing interests hard to manage. OJS has now been updated to display both the author list and the affiliations at the top of the assignment page, so that editors can make more informed decisions when inviting reviewers. |
| OJS-1375 | Enhancement | Connection to Plausible | The journal platform is now connected to Plausible.io to track site usage. This will be a replacement to the Google Analytics service that has previously been supported. Further announcements regarding this switch will be made shortly. |
| OJS-1418 | Bug fix | Enable Hypothes.is viewer only if the tab is selected | The annotation and commenting function available on the journal platform, Hypothes.is, was previously displaying public annotations as default. This has been changed so that public annotations are now only displayed if the user clicks on the Annotations tab on the publication page. |
Jun 6, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1407 | Enhancement | Increase in OJS loading times | Efficiencies have been found in how OJS and the frontend website query the OJS database. This has led to loading time improvements of up to 28%. |
| OJS-166 | Feature | JPPS badge integration | The OJS platform has had a setting added so that if a journal is registered as part of the JPPS scheme (see https://www.journalquality.info/en/ ) then the relevant badge will display on the journal banner. |
| OJS-533 | Feature | Become a Reviewer button | It is now possible to add a ‘Become a Reviewer’ button onto the journal banner, helping to encourage journal readers to engage with the journal and aid the peer review process. The button can be enabled/disabled via OJS Journal Manager settings website > Appearance > Setup. |
| OJS-1168 | Bug fix | Liveness probe (journal resilience) | The cloud infrastructure that supports the journal platform will now automatically check that OJS is available every 5 minutes. If OJS is not responding properly (i.e. the site is ‘down'), OJS will be restarted so that any unintended downtime is minimal, with automated correction. This is an interim solution in preparation for an upcoming long-term solution. |
| OJS-1343 | Feature | Additional publisher URL | The Press URL setting previously provided the URL for the publisher name in the footer as well as linking from the logo in the banner. Some journals fed back that they needed these to be separate, so that the logo links to one location and the publisher name in the footer links to another location. This has been implemented. Website > Appearance > Setup > Press URL now provides a link to the logo in the banner whilst a new setting at Journal > Masthead > Publisher URL provides a link for the publisher name in the footer. A Knowledge Base article on the setting is available here. |
| OJS-1346 | Bug fix | Incorrect URLs in automated reviewer reminders | A bug has been fixed that was providing incorrect URLs to reviewers when they received automated review reminders. All URLs provided to reviewers should now be correct. |
May 23, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1382 | Enhancement | Speed improvement | Infrastructure upgrades were completed to help increase the loading speed for OJS installations. |
| OJS-1354 | Enhancement | Add Print ISSN to frontend footer | If a Print ISSN is added into the OJS metadata then this will now display in the journal footer on the frontend. Previously only the Online ISSN was displayed. |
| OJS-1360 | Bug fix | Peer reviewed status | Each journal Section/Article type has a setting option ‘Will not be peer-reviewed’. When ticked, the frontend should not display the ‘peer reviewed’ status on the publication page. This setting was not being respected, so some publications were being labeled as peer reviewed when this was not the case. This has been corrected so that the frontend respsects the Section setting. |
| OJS-1335 | Bug fix | ‘Show Carousel’ setting not working | The ‘Show Carousel’ setting was not being edited in OJS but not reflected on the frontend unless other actions were also taken. This has been fixed so that when the setting updates then the frontend immediately. |
| OJS-1325 | Bug fix | Author name display for Table of Contents | The display of author family names was not correct on the homepage or issue Table of Contents if the author had multiple family names. Previously the list would only display the last name available. Now it will show all names in the Family Name field of OJS. |
| OJS-1323 | Bug fix | API throws a 500 error if collection does not exist | The journal frontend was crashing if a specific collection path was searched for but didn’t exist. The API now responds with a 404 response so that the frontend can handle this appropriately in the event that a user navigates to one of these pages. |
| OJS-1320 | Bug fix | Import/Export plugin error | The Import/Export plugin was giving a continuous spinning wheel when asked to export publications. This has now been fixed. |
| OJS-1282 | Enhancement | Add link to Community Portal | A link to the ]u[ Ubiquity Community Portal has been added to the OJS banner, allowing all journal users to easily ask questions and see comments from other users. There is also a specific Journal Editor community that editors are able to access (if access is required but not yet provided, please contact emily@ubiquitypress.com). |
| OJS-1279 | Bug fix | Ordering of sections & Collections error | Sections (article types) & Collections can have editable ordering in OJS but this was not being reflected on the frontend unless other actions were also taken. This has been fixed so that when the Section/Collection setting is updated then the frontend will quickly also update. |
| OJS-1219 | Enhancement | Repoint the 'start submission' buttons | Previously the ‘start submission’ buttons that are found on the journal banner and /about/submissions page pointed to the general OJS user dashboard. They now point directly to the submission form, helping prospective authors to directly access the submission system. |
| OJS-868 | Bug fix | Issue galley file | Further correction to the ability for an issue to have a complete galley available to the readers, allowing the journal to create an issue as a single file that is downloadable on the journal frontend. |
| OJS-1294 | Enhancement | Install Honeypot plugin | Installation of a plugin that helps to block out spam/bot user registrations. |
| OJS-742 | Enhancement | Install betterPassword plugin | Installation of a plugin that increases registration security by implementing NIST recommendations for passwords (e.g. miinimum length, checking passwords against known weak passwords, rate limiting failed password attempts). |
| OJS-1364 | Bug fix | DOAJ export issue | When trying to download articles using the DOAJ export issue function only a white page page being produced. This has now been fixed so that the export is functional. |
May 9, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-960 | Feature | Issue page: additional metadata | The issue page on the new journal platform didn’t include the article metadata such as pagination, volume and issue, nor a download button. These have now been added. |
| OJS-685 | Feature | Collections plugin: path setting | The ‘path’ setting in the collections form was previously not used on the new platform, with the frontend URL using the collection ID number. This has now been updated so that the ‘path’ in the setting will dictate the URL in the frontend for that collection page. The collection ID numbers that were previously used should now redirect to the URL using the path, so that old hyperlinks do not need to be updated. |
| OJS-1342 | Bug fix | Publication metadata | Bug fixed so that indexers such as Google Scholar can more accurately identify the whole author list and not only the first author. |
Apr 25, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-883 | Enhancement | Issue notifications | When a new issue is published there is a setting that dicates whether registered ‘Readers’ should be notified or not via email. OJS has this setting enabled as default. This caused a number of problems as a lot of journals publish the issue at the start of the year, when there is no/little content available. The OJS setting has been updated so that it is now opt-in rather than opt-out, so errors should be removed |
| OJS-1056 | Enhancement | Collection setting | Collections were only available on a submission’s publication tab if that collection was set to be open for submissions. This caused problems for journals that did not want a collection open to the public or wanted to amend an assignment after the call for submissions had closed. The collections plugin has now been updated so that all collections are now available to all submissions once they are in the OJS system, regardless of whether they are publicly available and appear on the submission form. |
| OJS-1102 | Bug fix | Formatting in titles | Ubiquity previously added formatting options into the title field for a submission, however, if a user pasted their submission title into OJS then it often retained non-permitted formatting formatting from the source document - this could have been displayed or hidden HTML style tags. The present of unwanted formatting HTML led to poor displays of the submission title within OJS, emails and publication pages. The platform has now been updated so that non-permitted formatting will be stripped out when the page is saved, so that only italics, superscript and subscript are retained. |
| OJS-1328 | Enhancement | Collection alt-text | Collection images now have a field so that the journal manager can add alt-text. The use of this setting is strongly recommended, to help enhance the accessibility of the websites. |
| OJS-1332 | Bug fix | Issue galleys | Issues may now have a galley file uploaded to provide the issue as a single collated file. Any file uploaded as an Issue Galley will be downloadable via the frontend issue page. |