Online Submission & Peer Review System (OJS) — included with hosting

Overview

Submissions arrive by email, reviewers are chased by hand, and nobody can say with certainty where a manuscript is or how long it has been waiting. Some vendors solve this with a submission system that charges the journal every time an author presses “submit,” which punishes growth. This service configures a complete online submission and peer review workflow on Open Journal Systems (OJS), hosted and maintained by NeucitePress, so that every manuscript, review, decision and message lives in one place. It is for journals moving off email or spreadsheets, journals leaving a per-submission platform, and new journals that want a professional workflow from the first issue.

What’s Included

• Hosted OJS installation on NeucitePress infrastructure, with updates, backups and security patches
• Submission forms configured for your journal, including ORCID author authentication, ROR affiliation identifiers and CRediT contributor roles
• Single-anonymized or double-anonymized review workflow, with file anonymization checks
• Manuscript versioning across revision rounds
• Email templates for editors, authors and reviewers in your journal’s voice
• Automated reminders for overdue reviews and revisions
• Reviewer analytics: response rates, turnaround time and review quality ratings
• Crossref Similarity Check (iThenticate) integration at submission
• APC payment integration where the journal charges article processing fees
• Training session for the editorial team and a written operating guide

How It Works

1. We review your current workflow, sections, review model and policies with the editor-in-chief or managing editor.
2. We configure the OJS workflow, forms, templates, roles and integrations to match those decisions.
3. Your team tests the workflow with sample submissions and we adjust it based on their feedback.
4. We migrate existing in-progress manuscripts where feasible, then switch the journal to the live system.
5. Ongoing hosting, updates and support continue under your NeucitePress hosting plan. The system is included with any NeucitePress hosting plan; there is no per-submission software fee.

What Stays With Your Editors

Your editors keep full authority over reviewer selection, editorial assessment and every acceptance or rejection decision. NeucitePress builds and runs the system, keeps it patched and available, and supports your team in using it. The workflow follows your policies, not ours.

Important Limitations

• This is a workflow and hosting service. It does not include managing editor staffing, which is available separately.
• Crossref Similarity Check requires Crossref membership; membership fees are set by Crossref and are not included.
• APC payment integration depends on the journal holding an account with a supported payment provider.
• Migration of historical submissions from another platform depends on the export that platform allows.
• A submission system improves organization and record keeping; it does not by itself increase submissions or guarantee indexing.

Common Questions

Is there really no charge per submission? Correct. The system is part of the NeucitePress hosting plan. The hosting fee is the same whether the journal receives fifty or five hundred submissions a year.

Can we keep our existing journal website? Yes. OJS can run as the submission and review system behind an existing public site, or it can serve as both the site and the workflow.

Who owns the data? The journal. Submission records, reviews and decisions belong to the journal and can be exported in standard OJS formats at any time.

Request a proposal, or begin with the Journal Health Check.