February 6th – 10th marks Multilingual Week at Simon Fraser University (SFU), an initiative that lines up well with the Public Knowledge Project’s (PKP) work towards making research a global public good. As a Core Facility of SFU, and to emphasize the importance of multilingualism to the Project over the last 25 years, PKP answers the question of why multilingualism in the academy matters.
Why Multilingualism?
Publishing in English is not a marker of scholarly quality and integrity. Turning to English-only journals to understand the scope of scholarly publishing today is a deeply flawed method that furthers ideas of the “West” as a source of dominance, innovation, and direction. It perpetuates forms of intellectual colonialism, while leaving out the knowledge contributions of the rest of the world.
The global research and scholarly publishing community has long been aware of the dire need to open up access to, as well as embrace, the diverse, culturally rich scholarly ecosystems that exist globally. Those working on the Project have been taking action by pursuing multilingualism in a variety of ways.
Multilingualism and PKP Software
The Project’s free and open source software (FOSS) is built for bibliodiversity, with its community of users translating the software into 30+ languages and publishing multilingual publications that adhere to industry standards like DOI, ORCID, OAI-PMH, ONIX, and more.
What that looks like, Khanna and PKP colleagues (2023) have shown, is 25,671 journals using PKP’s Open Journal Systems (OJS) to publish 5.8 million items in 136 countries that appear in 60+ languages, with 84.2% of the journals offering diamond open access (no fees).
The LSE Impact Blog recently published an article by the same research team, who argue that “rather than being an aspiration an open, regional and bibliodiverse publishing ecosystem is already in existence”.
PKP School
Multilingualism is also found in PKP School, which is online, self-paced, free and open access, with courses in English, French, and Spanish on setting up a journal and editorial workflow. An initiative is underway to extend the multilingual learning materials by working with partners.
OJS Tutorials in 8 Languages on YouTube
Users can find learning materials about PKP’s Open Journal Systems (OJS) 3 on YouTube in Arabic, French, English, Hindi, Indonesian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Ukrainian.
Document Interest Group (DIG) and In-Kind Contributors
The DIG is a PKP community led initiative that creates, manages, and improves documentation about PKP software and publishing best practices in at least five languages currently.
To support multilingual journals using OJS, the DIG has recently documented Using PKP Software in Multiple Languages and a PKP Translating Guide.
The DIG also hosts a Spanish subgroup, formed by international community members dedicated to the translation, creation, and maintenance of Spanish language resources.
There is an open call for community members interested in becoming In-Kind Contributors, including translators.
PKP Publishing Services in Multiple Languages
PKP Publishing services provides hosting, support, and customization services to institutions, organizations, and individuals across the globe. To increase the quality and reach of scholarship, hosted and non-hosted clients can access training in the use of OJS, OMP, and OPS in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Japanese.
PKP Community Forum Regional Interest Groups
The PKP Community Forum includes Regional Networks for Dutch, Italian, and Spanish communities as well as for the European Community in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) for topics related to PKP software and services moderated by contributors from around the world.
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PKP software version 3.4 feature sneak-peek! The upcoming 3.4 release of PKP’s software suite will feature email templates in any language.
