Which Platform Should We Use?

Overview

Every vendor says their platform is the right one. You need someone to look at your actual requirements, your budget over several years, and your staff’s capacity, and tell you plainly what fits. Platform Selection Advisory is a short, independent engagement that produces a recommendation you can take to a committee or a dean, with the numbers behind it.

It is for libraries, university presses, societies and research institutes choosing a platform for the first time, or reconsidering the one they have. We compare Open Journal Systems (OJS), the free, open-source software from the Public Knowledge Project (PKP); Janeway, the open-source platform from the Open Library of Humanities and Birkbeck; and the commercial software-as-a-service products relevant to your situation.

What’s Included

• Requirements workshop — structured sessions with editorial, library and IT stakeholders to capture functional, technical, policy and budget requirements
• Requirements document — prioritized and weighted, agreed with you before scoring begins
• Platform comparison — OJS, Janeway and relevant commercial SaaS options assessed against your requirements: workflow, theming, indexing and DOI support, accessibility, preservation, data ownership, integration, hosting models and support
• Five-year cost model — licensing or subscription, hosting, migration, staffing, training, upgrades and exit costs for each option
• Written recommendation — a clear primary recommendation, alternatives, risks and an implementation outline
• Presentation — a session with your decision-makers to walk through the findings and answer questions

How It Works

1. Kick-off: we agree scope, stakeholders and timeline.
2. Requirements workshops and document sign-off.
3. Platform assessment and cost modeling.
4. Draft report for your review, then final report and presentation. Pricing is a fixed fee per engagement, scaled by the number of journals and stakeholder groups involved.

Important Limitations

• Independence — NeucitePress hosts and supports OJS. We state this openly, we score every platform against the same requirements, and we will recommend a commercial platform or Janeway when it fits better.
• Cost figures — commercial pricing is based on vendor list prices and quotes you obtain; we cannot guarantee negotiated rates.
• Not an implementation — the advisory ends with a recommendation. Implementation, migration and hosting are separate services.

Common Questions

Will you just recommend OJS?
Only if it is the best fit for your requirements. The scoring is transparent and you can see how each platform was assessed.

How long does it take?
Typically a few weeks, depending on how quickly stakeholders can be scheduled for workshops.

Can this be used in a procurement process?
Yes. The requirements document and comparison are written so they can support a tender or internal approval process.

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