Open Journal System
Open Journal System seems to be the best available free software solution for running a journal. Their demo is quite extensive and allows access to most of its functionality. Culture Machine is an example of an OJ journal in the UK with support for collaborative writing and sharing in academia in general.
My biggest problem with it is that although its peer reviewing options are good for the currently existing model used in academia, it doesn’t seem to be modular enough to allow the kind of open peer reviewing i’ll be proposing to journals. In other words, it maps onto the existing workflow of journals, while what i’m looking for is a web publishing system that will assist in innovating in the models of reviewing and collaboration in general. In addition to reviewing, i believe we need web tools for dynamic, open relationships within editorial collectives, and for changing the idea of printed journal (more on this is another post). Feature request is always as option. I’ll write a review of the OJS from the perspective of these open and dynamics models of reviewing, co-editing and publishing that are on my mind as a logical next step in knowledge production.
