Release Notes: Journals (2024)
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 17, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1979 | Enhancement | Upgrade to OJS 3.3.0-17 | Upgrade to all journals to a recent release of OJS, bringing additional security and stability. |
| OJS-2008 | Bug fix | Site Usage (Plausible) dashboard | The Site Usage dashboard, powered by Plausible, stopped working due to the platform upgrade. The code has been updated so that the dashboard is no longer blocked and displays as normal. |
| OJS-2000 | Bug fix | ReCaptcha on registration | Some journals experienced problems with the registration form and the ReCaptcha function not working. This has been fixed so that the forms now work as intended. |
Dec 3, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1977 | Bug fix | (C)LOCKSS manifest page | A bug was found on the (C)LOCKSS manifest page, which is used as a preservation service to ensure permanency of the journal content. This has now been fixed. |
| OJS-1994 | Bug fix | OpenID plugin fix | During testing of the OpenID plugin some bugs were found relating to logging out functions and translations. Fixes for these have been fed back to the maintainer of the plugin so that all OJS users can benefit from the changes. The plugin can be viewed at
GitHub - pkp/openid: OpenId plugin for OJS, OMP, OPS. Should your journal wish to use this functionality, please contact your account manager. |
| OJS-1972 | Enhancement | Reviewer suggestion plugin | A code enhancement was released to this plugin after a member of the community received warnings during implementation around the call to certain email variables. |
| OJS-1955 | Bug fix | Download review form | The ability to download the completed review form in PDF format was temporarily not functional. This has now been reinstated. |
Nov 19, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various | Enhancement | Core contribution refinements | The contributions for Downloading Review forms and Logging the response from a reviewer have now been merged into core OJS. |
| OJS-1949 & OJS-1951 | Enhancement | Security update | Continued journal security improvements |
Nov 5, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1937 | Enhancement | Download peer review forms (public plugin) | The ability for the editor to download completed peer reviw forms has now been made into a public plugin. The feature has also been enhanced, as it is now able to output XML as well as PDF copies of the review forms. |
| OJS-1919 | Bug fix | Diacritics in peer review download | The PDF download function for completed peer review forms was not displaying the diacritic/special characters correctly. This has now been fixed so that the output display matches the on screen display. |
| OJS-1917 | Enhancement | Security update | Continued journal security improvements |
Oct 22, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1909 | Bug fix | Related Articles display | The Related Articles tab on journal publication pages had stopped working due to a change in the Content Security Policy. This has been updated so that the TrendMD list of articles will now appear again. |
| OJS-1914 | Enhancement | CLOCKSS manifest page | An update to the CLOCKSS manifest page so that the preservation services can more easily find the journal location. |
| OJS-1923 | Enhancement | Update to Competing Interests author instructions | During submission, the author is asked to delcare competing interests. The instruction that accompanies the request has been updated so that it is clearer to the author on what kinds of CIs should be declared. |
| OJS-1929 | Enhancement | Caching reset when saving setting updates | The way in which settings are saved has been updated so that the frontend cache now resets at the same time, helping to ensure that the changes are reflected instantly to the user. |
Oct 8, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1928 | Bug fix | Change to CSS so that non-breaking hyphens don't break | XML tags for non-breaking hyphenation were not being respected when the full text article was displayed. This has now been corrected so that non-breaking hyphens will display as intended. |
Sep 24, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1846 | Enhancement | OJS setting speed | Saving settings in OJS has become very slow due to data caching issues. The method of saving data has been updated so that saving OJS settings should now be very quick (version 17-50 onwards). |
| OJS-1922 | Bug fix | Journal logo not showing for multilingual journals | A bug was discovered whereby the journal logo was not displaying for multilingual journals if the logo was a specific file format. This has been fixed so that the file should always display. |
| OJS-1881 | Enhancement | Refinement to review download function (core contribution) | Continuation of OJS-1493 (below), where Ubiquity have submitted a core contribution so that editors are able to download submitted peer review forms. After code review, edits have been made to the enhance the cod |
Sep 10, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1874 | Enhancement | Issue page collection and taxonomy identifiers | The issue page now includes tags to show whether the published article is associated with a collection and/or has a taxonomy label assigned to it. Previously these tags were only displayed on the main articles list. |
Aug 27, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1877 | New feature | Author search from publication page | The article publication page now includes a search option for each listed author, allowing the reader to find more content published by that author either on the journal-only, or via Google Scholar. |
| OJS-1096 | New feature | Editor/Section Editor assignments display (OJS 3.5 core contribution) | When assigning an editor to a new submission, it is currently not possible to see the existing workload of the editorial team. New functionality has been put in place to display the existing assignments that each editor has, along with their key research interests and affiliation (pulled from the user profile). A label will also be displayed if the author and editor come from the same institution. This should help the assigning editor to find the most suitable editor for the submission (from 3.5 onwards, not currently live on the Ubiquity platform). |
| OJS-1834 | Enhancement | Removal of italics from <blockquote> as default | HTML <blockquote> previously defaulted to italics without the article necessarily wanting it to. This has been updated so that italics will only display on block quotes if instructed to in the HTML/XML. |
Aug 13, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1493 | Enhancement | Review form download function (OJS 3.5 core contribution) | Work to move the review form download function from a Ubiquity plugin into core OJS code (from 3.5 onwards, not currently live on the Ubiquity platform). |
| OJS-1860 | Bug fix | Remove non-corresponding author contact details | Article metadata included the email address for author who were not labelled as the corresponding author. These have now been removed so that only the corresponding author email is provided. |
| OJS-1869 | Bug fix | OpenID plugin fix | Fix submitted to the public plugin for OpenID functionality. |
Jul 30, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1853 | Bug fix | Custom pages not displaying | A new frontend website release included a bug where custom pages did not render unless they were part of the navigation. This has now been fixed so that custom pages display all of the time. |
| OJS-1855 | Enhancement | Author list to issue page | The full author list will now be displayed for each publication on the issue page. Previously only the first author was displayed on this page. |
| OJS-1864 | Bug fix | Archive pages permits no cover image | A bug was discovered where the Issue Archive page would break if an issue didn’t have a default or custom cover page uploaded. This has now been fixed so that the page will load even when an issue has no cover image available. |
Jul 16, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-985 | Enhancement | Security patch | Security patch added to backend OJS |
| OJS-1194 | Bug fix | Redirect away from native OJS announcements | It was discovered that some links within emails sent from OJS included the URL to the native OJS web pages and not the Ubiquity ones. These should now redirect so that only the Ubiquity platform pages are available. |
| OJS-1498 | Enhancement | Accessibility: underlined links | The journal frontend has been updated to now show linked text more prominently, to be in line with WCAG definitions. Links within body text are now permanently underlined rather than only when the user hovers over the text, and headings, titles and quick links are underlined when the user hovers over the text. |
| OJS-1746 | Bug fix | Galley ordering | The journal frontend was not reflecting the order in which Galley files were being listed in OJS. This has been corrected so that the frontend will now always reflect the same order as the backend. |
| OJS-1825 | Bug fix | Display error in notification setting | A display error was identified in the notification settings, where the wrong text was being displayed and formatting was incorrect. This has been corrected. |
| OJS-1838 | Bug fix | Users being logged out | A small number of journals began reporting that users were occasionally being logged out of the system whilst they were working within OJS. An investigation has been completed and a fix implemented onto the affected journals. |
Jul 2, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1435 | Enhancement | Author names into review invitation workflow | A core contribution was made to OJS 3.4 so that the author names and affiliations will be displayed to the editor when assigning peer reviewers. There will also be a warning tag if any peer reviewers have the same affiliation as someone on the author list so that competing interests can be avoided. This is a core contribution after the Ubiquity platform gained this function as part of OJS-1426 (below). |
| OJS-1764 | Enhancement | Metadata logging for co-authors | The metadata logs have been updated so that there is now more visibility in the Activity Log when contributors who are not the primary author have their metadata edits. Previously, although the metadata changed, the Activity Log was not acknowledging this, making an audit of the submission only partially available. This has also been contributed back to core OJS. |
| PLAT-1298 | New feature | Metrics: Display of usage maps | The journal and books platform now displays a map to show where users of the book/article are based. Geolocation is obtained via the IP address of the person reading the content. Once the country has been logged, the IP address is then deleted, meaning that the platform can display the map whilst remaining fully GDPR compliant as no personal data is being collected and stored. |
| OJS-1771 | Enhancement | Infrastructure upgrade for the ‘JOLs’ | Platform maintenance and upgrades for the Journal Online platforms (JOLs). |
| OJS-1806 | Enhancement | Rollout of new journal frontend | A new an improved journal frontend infrastructure is being rolled out in batches across the platform. Journals on the new frontend will have the version number v.1.5.2 or higher. The new infrastructure provides a faster loading time, better SEO and accessibility. |
| OJS-1813 | Enhancement | Security review and backup assessment | Scheduled review and actioning of backup and restoration protocol for journal data. |
Jun 18, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1175 | Enhancement | Page redirects | Additional URL redirects have been put in place to ensure that the reader will be redirected to the current/correct page if they use an old/unsupported URL |
| OJS-1711 | Enhancement | Remove ‘incomplete submissions’ from submission list | A script has been run so that all ‘incomplete submissions’ older than 30 days will no longer display in the submission list (note: this is only released on journals on the very latest version of the platform. A few remaining journals are being updated in the coming week). |
| OJS-1775 | Enhancement | Speed improvement | Efficiencies were found in API endpoint, making the loading time for the frontend quicker. |
| OJS-1780 | Enhancement | PKP Preservation Network | Journals have been integrated with the PKP Preservation Network, a service to enhance digital preservation of academic publications (note: this is only released on journals on the very latest version of the platform. A few remaining journals are being updated in the coming week). |
| OJS-1786 | Bug fix | Ordering of issues | The issue page displayed a bug where in come cases the order of the published issues was not correct. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1801 & OJS-1801 | Enhancement | Additional meta tags to enhance indexing | Additional meta tags were added to the article publication pages to help indexes such as Google Scholar collect expanded metadata. |
Jun 4, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1805 | Enhancement | Website loading speed | The journal (frontend) website speed has been greatly increased for all journals using version 1.5.2 or above. This will be rolled out across the whole platform in the coming weeks. |
| OJS-1475 | Enhancement | Editor records reviewer response (OJS 3.5 core contribution) | A contribution into the next major release of OJS (3.5) has been made so that the plugin created by Ubiquity that allows an editor to log a reviewers response will be in the core OJS code. |
| OJS-1767 | Bug fix | Correction to email template | A notification that can be sent to alert readers of a new issue was not pulling from the correct template. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1795 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1796 | Enhancement | Translations | Additional translations were added to the OJS plugins created by Ubiquity so that all languages currently supported on the platform are now comprehensively covered. |
| PLAT-1367 | Enhancement | Additional data to production team | Additional data was added to the author data that is sent to the production team, helping to make the typesetting process more efficient. |
May 21, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-979 | Enhancement | Referrer policy not defined | Security enhancement added to prevent browsers from sending sensitive information to third party sites. |
| OJS-1656 | Enhancement | Upgrade to 3.3.0-17, including speed improvements | The OJS system was updated to 3.3.0-17. As well as minor patches, this includes an increase in loading speed for the OJS backend/editorial system. |
| OJS-1781 | Enhancement | Additional data to production team | Additional data was added to the author data that is sent to the production team, helping to make the typesetting process more efficient. |
| OJS-1782 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1792 | Bug fix | Submitted/accepted dates not displaying properly | Some journals experienced a problem where the submitted and accepted dates on new publications were incorrect. This has been fixed. |
| PLAT-1401 | Bug fix | Correction of finance logging | Two minor data inconsistencies were noticed relating to how APC finance was being logged against the article in question. These have both been updated. |
May 8, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1745 | Bug fix | Issue page doesn't display custom thumbnails | A bug was discovered for journals released onto a new version of the frontend websites, where custom thumbnails were not displaying on the issue page. This has now been fixed. |
| OJS-1752 | Bug fix | Issue with frontend API after collections have been removed | If a collection that already had publications assigned to it was deleted then the removal of the collection assignment caused display issues for the publication(s) in question. This has now been fixed so that if the collection is deleted, any submissions/publications that are associated with it will be unaffected, apart from the removal of the collection. |
| OJS-1774 | Bug fix | Navbar content errors | After a recent upgrade, some journals with custom navigation menus saw errors introduced. These have been fixed. |
| OJS-1755 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| PLAT-1364 | Bug fix | Production file upload | The Ubiquity production team experienced problems uploading files into the production workflow, causing delays to the typesetting and proofing process. This has been fixed. |
Apr 23, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1233 | Enhancement | Alt text for `alt` banner images | Addition of alt text for frontend images, helping to increase journal accessibility. |
| OJS-1260 | Bug fix | Versioning API | Update to the versioning functionality so that the frontend can receive the correct information. This does not yet make versioning fully functional, but removes a key bug to future development. |
| OJS-1737 | Bug fix | OAI-PMH error | The OAI-PMH feed was displaying an error for some journals. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1740 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1741 | Enhancement | PKP Preservation Network | Instillation, testing and fixing of the PKP Preservation Network plugin, which will increase the preservation of content for all journals on the Ubiquity platform. |
| PLAT-1320 | Bug fix | Numerical reference lists | A bug was discovered that was preventing reference lists from displaying the numerical identifier, and instead showing a bullet point. This has been resolved. |
| PLAT-1343 | Bug fix | Author list for Harvard citation style | The citation export function was only showing the first author if the Harvard style was selected. This has been updated so that all authors now display. |
| OJS-1749 | Bug fix | Issue page | A bug was found on the journal issue page that caused an error in the display of some journals. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-663 | Enhancement | Preset email templates | Email templates have been updated so that new installations will have improved templates without additional setup required, thus lowering the setup time for new journals. |
Apr 9, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1450 | Enhancement | `Alt` text for journal banner images | The API was updated to include the alt text for the journal banner images, thus aiding site accessibility. |
| PLAT-1247 | Bug fix | Republish article galley files | An error previously occurred where unpublishing and then republishing an article with different galley files often didn’t update the frontend correctly. This has now been corrected. |
| OJS-1724 | Enhancement | UnitTests to the OJS API | Addition of unit tests into the OJS API, helping to reduce the number of introduced bugs. |
| OJS-1728 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1729 | Enhancement | Translation portal | Additional of journal content into a translation portal, allowing for translations to be provided easily and quickly. |
| OJS-1731 | Bug fix | Error in navigation bar | A recent update caused an error within the website navigation bar when the journal was upgraded. This error has been fixed. |
Mar 26, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-402 | Bug fix | Make galley files private if unpublished | When a published article was unpublished, the original galley file was not being linked to, but was technically still available. This is now not the case. If a galley file is unpublished, it will not be available via the same URL. |
| OJS-1665 | Bug fix | Cover images | The method of providing the cover image to the frontend has been updated, as inconsistencies were being found, leading to display issues. |
| OJS-1691 | Enhancement | RSS feed configuration | The setting for RSS feeds has been updated so that external feed readers are able to load the data quicker. |
| OJS-1715 | Bug fix | Issue end point speed | The API end points for issue pages were taking too long to load. This has been addressed so that the data can be provided to the frontend pages quicker. |
| OJS-1719 | Bug fix | General content block not displaying | The general content block on the journal homepage was not displaying correctly for a small number of journals. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1725 | Bug fix | Article order on issue page | The order of published articles on the issue page was not always updating correctly/quickly. This has been fixed. |
| OJS-1722 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below) |
Mar 12, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various | Enhancement | Continued investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | Ongoing work updating plugins that will be required for the OJS 3.4 upgrade |
| OJS-1710 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
Feb 27, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various | Enhancement | Continued investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | Ongoing work updating plugins that will be required for the OJS 3.4 upgrade |
| OJS-1329 | Bug fix | Participant assignment lists not correctly displaying | A code contribution was submitted to core OJS to fix a bug whereby the assignment page for article participants gives the wrong number of rows/entries. Once merged into core OJS, Ubiquity will update its platform to include this fix. |
| OJS-1650 | Enhancement | Security patches | Security enhancements added to the journal platform |
| OJS-1689 | Bug fix | Full Issue downloads not working | Some journals that had uploaded full issue galleys had discovered that older files were no longer publicly available. These have been fixed so that all issue galleys are now available again. |
| OJS-1690 | Enhancement | New journal frontend infrastructure | A new journal frontend has been tested and will be deployed to all journals over the coming weeks. Whilst the design is the same, the new websites should bring significant loading speed improvements, among other things. |
| OJS-1692 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1700 | Bug fix | Submission Checklist | A bug was discovered in newly installed journals that was preventing the submission checklist from appearing on the frontend website. This has been fixed. |
| PLAT-1171 | Bug fix | Citation export error | Some publications were showing a 500 error when the reader tried to download the citation file. This has now been fixed. |
| PLAT-1221 | Bug fix | Submission date display error | The submission date was displaying incorrectly for some articles that had HTML article pages, due to the quick submit plugin being used. This error has now been fixed. |
Feb 13, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-863 | Bug fix | JPEG collection images | Uploading JPEG file types as a collection image was previously creating an error. JPEGs now upload correctly. |
| OJS-1057 | Bug fix | Single name author citation | The ‘how to cite’ function on the journal frontend previously created initials for the author name, even when the author only had one name entered, which is incorrect. The citation tool should now render the full name, if only a single name is provided, to fit recognised citation styles. |
| OJS-1117 | Bug fix | Competing interests policy updated not saving | The central competing interest policy was sometimes resetting the entered content and thus not saving new edits. This has been fixed so that the save works as intended. |
| OJS-1653 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1671 | Bug fix | Publishing issues with articles already assigned | An error was occurring in journals that published a batch issue, whereby article were assigned to an unpublished issue and then the issue was published as a whole at the same time. In some cases, some articles were not being automatically published during this process. This has been fixed so that the the issues now publish in full, as intended. |
| OJS-1685 | Bug fix | Native XML export | The XML export function was not resulting in a valid XML file being produced. This has now been fixed so that the export plugin tool is now functional. |
Jan 30, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1618 | Enhancement | Omit Section title from issue page | An OJS setting to omit the Section/Article Type title from the issue page had previously not been implemented. The setting is now functional, meaning that a journal can choose whether to list the Section titles on their issue pages. To edit the setting go to |
| OJS-1655 | Enhancement | Page settings URL help text | A number of settings that create frontend page content did not display what URL the content would appear on. Help text has now been added to a list number of settings so that users can more easily find the content that they are editing. |
| OJS-1666 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| Various | Enhancement | Continued investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | Ongoing work updating plugins that will be required for the OJS 3.4 upgrade |
| OJS-1642 | Bug fix | Metadata errors | Specific aspects of the journal/article metadata have been optimised to allow easier indexing by databases such as Google Scholar. |
| OJS-1108 | Enhancement | Database cleanup | Certain database tables remained from the OJS 2 migration that could be optimised/removed. These were backed up and actioned. |
Jan 16, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1623 | Enhancement | Continued investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | Ongoing work updating plugins that will be required for the OJS 3.4 upgrade |
| OJS-1652 | Bug fix | Dependent files sometimes not displayed | An error was discovered that was leading to a small number of images not displaying on their publication pages. This has been fixed. |
Jan 2, 2024
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| OJS-1560 | Enhancement | Continued investigation into OJS 3.4 upgrade process | Ongoing work updating plugins that will be required for the OJS 3.4 upgrade |
| OJS-1644 | Enhancement | Email configurations | Continued release of updated email configurations to enhance deliverability and high compliance standards (see OJS-1561, below). |
| OJS-1651 | Bug fix | Articles that have no titles break the frontend | If an article was published with no title entered, it would break the article page on the journal website. This has now been fixed so that a publication without a title in the metadata will still display on the frontend pages. |