What is the Online Journal System?
Online Journal System (OJS) also alternately called Open Journal System (OJS) is a digital platform used in online journal publication that reflects the editorial process of the journal and at the same time has features that link the articles to indexing services such as Google Scholar. Consequently, the potential for the citation of articles is higher due to the online visibility of the article afforded by OJS.
Southern Leyte State University (SLSU) hosted the National Online Journal System Seminar-Workshop on July 18-20, 2016 at Cordova, Cebu to equip the members of the Visayas-Mindanao Consortium for Journal Publication to operate the OJS versions of their own journals. The consortium was formed earlier in May with SLSU Vice President for RDE Francis Ann Sy chosen as the Chair of the Consortium.
The trainer for the OJS seminar-workshop was Ludito Ramirez, Managing Editor of Naval State University's Journal of Society and Technology and his staff of information technology practitioners – Loudie Suliva and Jojo Estrada.
The OJS workshop came about because of the consortium's objective of mutual cooperation in journal publication resource sharing among the members of the consortium. The first project of the newly formed consortium was the provision of training on OJS to boost the citations and visibility of the journals of the participating higher education institutions. Members of the newly formed consortium are SLSU, Leyte Normal University, Eastern Visayas State University, Samar State University, Naval State University, Agusan del Sur State College of Agriculture and Technology, Bohol Island State University, Bukidnon State University, Cebu Normal University, Cebu Technological University, Jose Rizal Memorial State University, Negros Oriental State University, Northwestern Mindanao State College of Science and Technology, Surigao del Sur State University, Surigao State College of Technology and University of San Jose Recoletos.
Naval State University is the first in the Consortium to put its CHED-rated Category-A journal - Journal of Society and Technology on the OJS platform, subsequently providing instant online visibility for all of the journal's authors.
SLSLU’s first concern however is getting faculty members to understand the new trend of publishing articles outside the university.
"The new CHED guideline is that the more outside articles in your journal, the higher the points," explains VPRDE Francis Ann Sy. "I hope everybody will understand this."
With SLSU's involvement with the consortium, it is promoting the publication of the university's articles in the various specialized journals published by the consortium's members. "The consortium is a great network that we have right now. Every paper in SLSU desiring publication in a journal, can be submitted to any of the journals of the consortium which cater to various academic disciplines," said Sy.
The SLSU research office’s role at the same time now includes facilitating the submission of papers to other journals. The consortium is also creating a database of its peer-reviewers in line with its goals of mutual cooperation and resource sharing among its members.
An offline OJS version of a journal of Eastern Visayas State University presented during the output presentations in the National OJS Seminar-Workshop.