Open Journal Systems + Public Knowledge Project

Detail 2 Detail 3 Detail 4 Detail 4

↑ Click image to view project slides

The Public Knowledge Project exists as part of an effort by several universities (SFU, UBC and Stanford) to explore ways in which knowledge can be made openly available to people without the expensive barriers of existing publishing models.

Research has focused on academic publishing and its primary piece of software is Open Journal Systems (OJS), which enables anyone to start, publish and administer a peer-reviewed academic journal.

As the software moves through its version two release, it is finding use in a wide array of disciplines in the sciences and humanities and the single theme that the software ships with was deemed to limiting.

I have been retained to design new themes, the first of which are simply CSS documents that can be applied though the web-based OJS management interface. I am currently working on some more extensive themes that involve coding Smarty Templates for the layout engine.

PKP also publishes Open Conference Systems (OCS) which is a conference creation and management systems sharing some of the code-base and essential CSS of OJS.

With Open Journal Systems, Open Conference Systems and the project's additional product, Open Archive Harvester, PKP discovered that there was confusion in how potential adopters saw the different software. I have been retained to make clear visual distinctions for each of the software projects as well as to refine the basic presentation of the name of the project itself.

The project exists in a unique landscape of having to present organizational cohesion to its users and adopters, but being disallowed from becoming institutionalized in any way by its funding bodies.

I am exploring ways to achieve these goals using colours and type, as emblems and logos have proven too controversial for the research partners to adopt.