The Rocky Mountains span British Columbia and Alberta. Here, the blue sky and steel grey clouds are set against the rising peaks spotted with snow, with the coniferous tree line below. This photo was taken by PKP's Jason Nugent.

PKP Timeline

This timeline brings together PKP’s story, highlighting the importance of community and sustainability in advancing open research, access, advocacy, and infrastructure for scholarly publishing toward the global public good. Please click on the hyperlinks in the timeline to access the stories behind PKP.

1998 John Willinsky initiates the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) with the support of University of British Columbia Pacific Press Professorship. Read more.
2000 PKP releases its first open source software package Open Conference Systems (OCS), which it supports until 2014.
2002 Open Journals Systems (OJS) launched at Memorial University as an open source publishing platform.
PKP releases its open source indexing package Open Harvester Systems.
Peter Suber designates OJS release a “Landmark Event” on Open Access Movement Timeline.
2004 Pippa Smart of INASP invites PKP to set up OJS for its African Journals Online (AJOL) initiative in Grahamstown, South Africa.
2005 SFU Dean of Libraries Lynn Copeland initiates PKP partnership with Simon Fraser University Library and the Canadian Institute for Studies in Publishing, led by Rowly Lorimer.
Alec Smecher joins PKP as lead developer.
PKP releases OJS 2.0.
2006 Mellon Foundation selects PKP for Technology Collaboration Award.
PKP Publishing Services launched to fund open source software development.
2007 PKP joins the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) Synergies project (2007 – 2011).
First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference held at SFU.
PKP releases OCS 2.0.
John Willinsky moves PKP research initiatives to Stanford on assuming Khosla Family Professorship, while SFU Associate Librarian Brian Owen takes on PKP Managing Director role.
2009 Second International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference is held at SFU.
2010 SFU Dean of Libraries Charles Eckman strengthens PKP’s association with libraries.
2011 Third International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference is held at Freie Universität Berlin.
2012 PKP Development Partnerships and community sustainer program is established.
PKP Advisory, Technical, and Members Committees is established.
2013 PKP releases Open Monograph Press (OMP) 1.0 to support publishing of scholarly books.
Fourth International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference is held at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
PKP School launches to provide free, online courses in scholarly publishing.
2014 PKP is identified as a High-Impact Open Access Organization for Infrastructure by Accelerating Science Awards Program, sponsored by Google, PLOS, and Wellcome Foundation.
Juan Pablo Alperin is appointed Assistant Professor in SFU Publishing Program.
2015 PKP launches MacArthur-funded Open Access Scholarly Publishing Cooperative Study.
Fifth International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference held at SFU.
Érudit joins with PKP to form Coalition Publica, a CFI-funded initiative to serve Canadian scholarly communication. 
2016 PKP Preservation Network launched for journals using OJS. 
OJS Version 3.0 launched.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council presents 2016 Connection Award to John Willinsky for PKP.   
2017 Sixth International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference held at Université de Montréal.
Abel Packer and colleagues at SciELO announce preprint server development plan.
2018 PKP and SciELO announce partnership to develop open source preprint server system.
Canadian Social Knowledge Institute presents Juan Pablo Alperin with its inaugural Open Scholarship Award.
Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) names PKP a funding awardee.
SFU Associate Librarian Brian Owen retires from SFU after serving 13 years as PKP Managing Director, with Kevin Stranack then stepping into the role. 
2019 Seventh International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference is held at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. 
Coko Foundation awards PKP its Open Publishing Lifetime Contribution Award.
James MacGregor steps in as interim PKP Managing Director, while Amanda Stevens assumes the leadership of PKP Publishing Services.
2020 PKP forms Equity and Inclusion Team and Decolonization Working Group to improve processes and organization.
PKP releases Open Preprint Systems (OPS), built in close consultation with SciELO
2021 OJS beacon data indicates that in 2020 over 25,000 journals were using OJS.
PKP’s Equity and Inclusion Team releases a Community Code of Conduct to guide and set expectations for PKP community behavior.
OA Diamond Journals Study finds 60% of diamond open access journals use OJS (a diamond open access journal is one without author or reader fees).  
SciELO and PKP announce renewed partnership.
2022 SciELO Preprints completes two years of operation contributing to open science.
SFU Dean of Libraries, Gwen Bird, initiates PKP’s move to the University’s Core Facilities Program, under the Office of Vice President, Research and International (VPRI).
SFU appoints Kevin Stranack as PKP Core Facility’s Operations Director; Juan Pablo Alperin and John Willinsky appointed as Co-Scientific Directors. 
CFI renews Coalition Publica support for 2023-2029.
OJS beacon data indicates that as of 2021, over 30,000 journals are using OJS world-wide.
2023 PKP celebrates 25 years of open source and open access along with SciELO and Érudit.
SSHRC / CRSH renews support of Coalition Publica for the development of open access.
ORCID names PKP as an awardee of its Global Participation Fund to support Indonesian scholarly publishing communities and build ORCID Communities of Practice.
CRKN-RCDR renews partnership with PKP to advance research and scholarship.
PKP becomes a Registered Service Provider with both DataCite and ORCID.