PKP Warsaw 2026: Documentation

At the PKP Warsaw 2026 Sprint, the Documentation Working Group expanded OJS publication ethics guidance and drafted a new DOAJ Export Plugin guide for journal editors.

Group Members

Aysa Ekanger, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Jeanette Hatherill, Coalition Publica (Note Captain)
Anne-Inger Hellekjær, Oslo Metropolitan University
Jan Willem Wijnen, Openjournals.nl

Abstract

This working group tackled gaps in PKP documentation around discoverability, transparency, and publication ethics for OJS journals. Members focused on two areas: a practical guide for the DOAJ Export Plugin, and clearer guidance on implementing COPE’s Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. The effort grew out of ongoing collaboration among Norwegian institutional publishers coordinated through NARMA, which is working to reduce duplicated documentation efforts nationally. Frequent turnover among journal editors makes accessible, well-organized documentation especially important. Over the sprint, the group drafted a DOAJ Export Plugin guide, compiled guidance on data availability policies for OJS, and proposed a structure for expanding publication ethics content in PKP’s “Getting Found, Staying Found” guide.

Background

Journal editorial teams change regularly, and each transition risks losing institutional knowledge. PKP’s user guides, hosted at the PKP Documentation Hub, are meant to help editors understand available OJS features, but coverage is uneven. The DOAJ Export Plugin is one example: no clear guide currently explains what it does or how to use it.

Separately, Norwegian institutional publishers have spent several years building closer collaboration, recently formalized through a network coordinated by NARMA. Their goal is shared documentation, built on standards from COPE, DOAJ, and PKP, that avoids duplicating effort across institutions. Two members of this working group are affiliated with Norwegian institutions and brought this context to the sprint.

One shared priority is COPE’s Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. Much of the current guidance simply points editors to COPE’s website when they need shorter, more practical instructions. The group also discussed open questions about which information belongs in PKP documentation versus other sources, and which standards are general versus discipline-specific.

Goals

• Improve discoverability and indexing support for Diamond Open Access journals using OJS.
• Produce a brief, practical user guide for the DOAJ Export Plugin.
• Expand the Publication Ethics section of the “Getting Found, Staying Found” guide.
• Include instructions for activating relevant OJS features within the ethics guidance.
• Ensure all documentation applies to OJS 3.5 and later versions.

Results

DOAJ Export Plugin guide. The group drafted a DOAJ Export Plugin guide, initially in Google Docs, and began converting it into Markdown for PKP’s documentation hub.

Data availability and policy guidance. The group compiled detailed guidance on what a journal’s data policy should cover: a data availability statement, expectations for reviewers checking data claims, procedures for alleged data falsification or fabrication, and a reference to a journal’s AI-use disclosure policy where AI is used in data analysis. This content is intended for the “Publishing Ethics” section of “Getting Found, Staying Found,” pending review by PKP’s Documentation Interest group. The group also mapped specific OJS settings that support a data policy, including author guidelines, upload file descriptions, the data availability statement metadata option, and reviewer guidelines. It noted that policy text could be published on the About page or a dedicated custom policies page, and raised whether existing guidance on creating custom pages could be referenced.

Publication ethics structure. The group drafted a proposed structure for the remaining policy areas under Section 7 of the Principles of Transparency, covering authorship, complaints and appeals, research misconduct, conflicts of interest, data sharing, ethical oversight, intellectual property, post-publication discussion, and corrections and retractions. For each, the structure notes relevant OJS features where they exist, such as the CRediT plugin for authorship.

Open questions. The group left some items unresolved, including how to address intellectual property concerns and where corrections and retractions guidance should point within OJS.

Next Steps

• Add more content to the “Publishing Ethics” section, following the proposed policy structure.
• Consider whether publication ethics content should become its own standalone guide as it grows.
• Port the draft DOAJ Export Plugin guide to the PKP Documentation Hub.
• File a ticket to correct the DOAJ Export Plugin’s misleading tool description in OJS.
• Submit a forum feature request for a default policies page separate from the About page.

Read the full notes here.