In 2003, the UiT introduced the use of the OJS for its publishing service, Septentrio Academic Publishing (SAP) which hosts 15 publication channels, whose diversity offers some challenges in the use of OJS.

OJS is a template-based but, it has its limitations, when it comes to the front-end design. SAP is confronted with creating a front end to engage journal-specific that reflects the brand of each journal. Presently, the SAP homepage is implemented using HTML/CSS and is responsive.

In addition, there is the issue of thematic organization of articles in the journal section of the SAP. For instance, to derive thematic headings in the table of contents, “fake” metadata-only were introduced, so that articles with titles would correspond to the headings. The problem is that these “fake” articles are exported and harvested to various services. So, a proper functionality is needed for the thematic grouping of contents within a section.

Further, some journals in SAP would like video/audio to be streamed to reside in SAP directly. Therefore, we are considering two alternatives. (1) How to create specially-formulated links in our HTML to refer to supplementary files and (2) how to create a plugin that permits the direct presentation of videos uploaded as articles.

There is also a need for interactive exercises in SAP, e.g. in language textbooks. It would be beneficial for us to intergrate such (Javascript-based) exercises in OJS and stop signposting learners to an external website.

Notwithstanding all these challenges, we are planning to upgrade to 3.x and look forward to its improved functionalities.