This chapter covers what you can do post-upgrade to get your new OJS 3 site ready and teach your journal team how to use it.
With respect to journal data, editors can be assured that all articles published in OJS 2.x as well as all submissions, peer reviews, and user accounts (including usernames and passwords) will remain in place in OJS 3 after the upgrade.
However, because of the form data field changes, some information may need to be saved in order to be reentered post-upgrade, such as Masthead and About the Journal sections. Additionally some plugins may need to be re-enabled.
Even with thorough pre-upgrade testing, issues and bugs may surface post-upgrade, so it is important to set aside time and support resources for troubleshooting.
PKP’s Community Support Forum is a great resource to research such issues. Additionally you will find it helpful to manage your OJS code with git so you can pull in small code changes from the PKP repository, use RSS to stay on top of major releases, and Zapier integrated with GitHub to monitor commits to the branch of OJS that you’re actively using.
Because OJS 3 is quite different than OJS 2, it is recommended that you plan for and schedule training on OJS 3 for your Journal Managers and Editors and ensure that support is available while they learn the new system.
Training can be offered before or after the upgrade and may be most useful or in demand immediately after the upgrade.
PKP has a number of training resources that can be used by Journal Managers and Editors to learn OJS 3, listed in the Additional Resources section at the end of this guide.
You can also arrange group workshops and/or one-on-one training and consultation, depending on the size and needs of your editorial team. We recommend 1-2 hours on journal setup and 1-2 hours on the submission workflow. You may also want to cover special topics relevant to your team, such as theming.
While authors and reviewers may also find submitting and reviewing articles in OJS 3 to be different than 2, their tasks are simple enough that it is unlikely they will need training on the new version. There is documentation in the above-mentioned resources specific to authors and reviewers that can be shared with them if needed.
You should also anticipate that your editorial team’s support needs will be higher than usual in the initial few months after the upgrade and ensure you have adequate resources to meet them.