IndraStra Open Journal Systems

IndraStra Open Journal Systems (commonly abbreviated as IndraStra OJS) is a managed scholarly publishing platform operated by IndraStra Global Publishing Solutions Inc. that provides cloud-hosted and institutionally deployed implementations of Open Journal Systems (OJS), the open-source journal management software developed by the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). The platform offers hosting, deployment, customization, technical support, migration, and maintenance services for academic journals, universities, research institutions, scholarly societies, and publishers. Built upon the Open Journal Systems software, IndraStra OJS supports the complete editorial workflow, including manuscript submission, peer review, copyediting, production, publication, indexing, and long-term preservation of scholarly journals. The platform is intended to facilitate open-access scholarly publishing while reducing the technical and administrative burden associated with self-hosting OJS installations.

History

IndraStra Open Journal Systems was introduced by IndraStra Global as part of its digital publishing and knowledge infrastructure services. The platform was developed to provide managed hosting and deployment services for institutions seeking to publish scholarly journals using Open Journal Systems without maintaining their own technical infrastructure. Over time, the service expanded from basic hosting to include enterprise deployments, migration from legacy publishing platforms, customization, editorial workflow support, accessibility documentation, and technical consulting. The platform has also been updated periodically to newer versions of Open Journal Systems as released by the Public Knowledge Project.

Overview

IndraStra OJS is based on the Open Journal Systems software but is offered as a managed service rather than as independently installed software. It enables institutions to establish and operate peer-reviewed academic journals through a centralized publishing platform maintained by IndraStra Global. The service supports both individual journal hosting and multi-journal institutional deployments, allowing each journal to maintain its own editorial policies, branding, workflows, and publication schedule while sharing common technical infrastructure. The platform supports open-access publishing and emphasizes compliance with recognized scholarly publishing practices.

Architecture and technology

The platform is built upon Open Journal Systems, an open-source journal management application developed by the Public Knowledge Project and distributed under the GNU General Public License. IndraStra OJS provides managed hosting together with software installation, upgrades, security maintenance, backups, and technical administration. It supports standard OJS functionality including online manuscript submission, editorial management, peer review, issue publication, user role management, multilingual interfaces, metadata management, and plugin-based extensibility. The platform is periodically upgraded to newer OJS releases as part of its managed service offering.

Editorial workflow

The platform supports the complete scholarly publishing workflow from manuscript submission to publication. Authors submit manuscripts through an online portal where editors conduct preliminary screening before assigning reviewers. Depending on journal policy, the platform supports various peer-review models available within Open Journal Systems. Following editorial acceptance, manuscripts proceed through copyediting, production, proofreading, and publication. Editorial communication, reviewer assignments, revision tracking, and publication scheduling are managed through integrated workflow tools provided by the underlying OJS software.

IndraStra OJS provides services and functionality including:

managed cloud hosting
enterprise OJS deployment
software installation and configuration
journal migration
technical maintenance
security updates
editorial workflow management
journal branding and customization
multilingual publishing
metadata management
user and role administration
backup and recovery services

The platform also offers technical assistance relating to journal setup, design, and deployment.

Integration and interoperability

Because it is based on Open Journal Systems, the platform supports interoperability with widely used scholarly publishing standards and services. These include the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), Digital object identifier (DOI) registration, ORCID, metadata export, indexing services, and long-term preservation mechanisms supported by OJS. Several journals hosted on the platform publish OAI-PMH endpoints for metadata harvesting and repository integration.

Hosted journals

IndraStra OJS hosts journals published by universities, research institutes, think tanks, and scholarly organizations. Publicly listed journals on the platform include Liberal Studies, CLAWS Journal, Political Science Review, JAIR Journal of International Relations, and The Dossier by IndraStra, among others. The platform also provides demonstration environments illustrating recommended deployment practices for prospective users evaluating the service.

Open access policy

According to IndraStra Global, journals hosted under its standard cloud platform are intended to support open-access publishing. The platform states that journals hosted under its standard service are expected to comply with open-access principles and specifies conditions relating to article processing charges and paywall restrictions for that hosting model. Individual journals remain responsible for their editorial policies, peer-review procedures, copyright management, licensing terms, and publication decisions. IndraStra Global states that it provides hosting infrastructure and technical services while editorial responsibility rests with the respective publishing institutions.