About #

When you use one of the theme products from openjournaltheme, you will get OJTPlugin as a panel to make it easier for you to manage the plugins provided by openjournaltheme. with this plugin you can install, delete, update all plugins provided by openjournaltheme.

This theme can be obtained without any cost or free. To get this product you can add your email in this page subscription page : https://openjournaltheme.com/ and we will send it right away to your email.

Requirement : #

• Minimum OJS 3.3.X or newer
• Your PHP server has the extension installed: PHP-zip, PHP-curl ( Usually it is installed automatically )
• Your OJS server can receive any connection from the external source

Installation #

OJT Control Panel Installation (required) #

Note:
1. If you already have OjtPlugin, you can skip the ojtPlugin installation tutorial, you can skip this step
2. If you have an outdated version, it is strongly to update to the newest version here: How to update OJT Control Panel

Click the following link for the detail tutorial on installing the OjtPlugin :

How to install OJT Control Panel

Once you have OJT Control Panel installed, you need to open the OJT Control Panel in the left menu of your admin page of OJS.

Then you need to access the plugin gallery, find Academic Free Theme and click install

Activate the Theme via OJS Control Panel by going to the menu Plugin Installed

After you choose Activate the Academic Free Theme based on the latest version please you refresh the page.

Then please go back to back-end website the Settings menu → Website → Click the Appearance tab to find the Theme Section as shown below :

Did you know? 
Your OJS site template will have an impact on the credibility and quality of your online journal. For writers, themes that look attractive will attract them to participate in your journal and for your readers, it will increase the literacy of your journal.

We provide the premium version of this theme with more style options and more theme options. Be sure to check out

Anatomy of Theme #

Before we begin this tutorial lets we must know the anatomy of the sites, here is the preview :

Detail section of theme  #

The theme is divided into some sections as numbered on the image preview: 

1. Journal Logo
2. About Journal
3. Journal Thumbnail 
4. Journal Summary
5. Custom Sidebar – Flyer
6. Announcements 
7. Custom Sidebar – Editorial Team
8. Current Issue
9. Custom Sidebar – Site Link
10. Journal Logo Bottom
11. Journal Footer

The documentation is organized based on the section above and provided with guidance to manage every aspect of that section. 

Before we begin, remember this pointer: 

1. Make sure you’re already logged in to the OJS backend as Site-Wide Administrator or as specific Journal Manager
2. Any change you made on any section, don’t forget to click Save and refresh your browser to see the effect (on some browser it needs to clear the cache)

Journal Logo  #

The first section of this template is called the journal logo to change the logo of the journal, we need to change it on the backend dashboard of OJS and must be accessed by site-wide administrator or journal manager level. 

How to change the logo: 

1. Click the journal, make sure you edit the right journal
2. Hover on the Settings menu on the left side, then click Website on the hover option
3. You would be provided with many tabs, by default it would activate the Appearance tab. 
4. As you can see, you can change the Logo of this section by the new logo
5. Tips: You can use our PSD (included with this theme) to make sure that the best image resolution for this journal logo.

About Journal #

To edit the “about journal” section, please hover the Settings menu then click Journal, the page will show some of the tabs (as shown on the above image). The default tab is Masthead

In this tab, you can see that there is a section or text box titled as About Journal as the image is shown below: 

There, you can edit the content of the text box to change the About Journal Section. 

Journal Thumbnail  #

Let go back to the Settings → Website option, where the Appearance tab is activated (as explained in the first section). 

On there it must show the Journal Thumbnail section as the image below: 

You can change the journal cover by uploading the new file, by clicking this button   and would make a new pop up 

Browse your file by clicking the Upload File button, then click OK. 

Tips :
1. The size of the image is not a problem for this theme, but the right size would make your OJS site load faster. 
2. Please enter the text box Alternate text to help the search engines crawl your page.

Journal Summary #

Please access the same menu and tabs as explained in section 2 before. On the Masthead tab, you can reach the text editor section called Journal Summary text box editor, edit it and don’t forget to push the Save button

Here is the preview of the journal summary section: 

Announcements  #

The announcements block is just ordinary announcements created by text editor or section provided by OJS itself. Ok, here is how to edit it: 

1. Activate the tabs Announcements on Website Settings
2. Click the Display Announcements checkbox as seen below :
3. Add new announcements by clicking Add Announcements text on the announcements table list as shown below:

Pop up would come out, then add the necessary info on the text box, example below:  

As you can see, it adds a new image on the Short Description and Description image (the sample image is available on the PSD files).
Do not forget to click the Save button.

Current Issues Section  #

Please refer to the official OJS documentation on creating issues here.

Journal Logo Bottom #

Journal Footer  #

This section will explain on how to modify the footer as seen on this image preview: 

To edit this footer, the steps are : 

1. Click Website Settings, make sure the Appearance tab is activated.

2. Find Page Footer text editor

Finish modifying your Page Footer? Do not forget to click the Save button.

End Of Documentation – Thank You #

Congrats! 🥳
You have reached the end of the documentation.
If you have any opinion, questions, suggestions to make this theme better please reach us at support@openjournaltheme.com 

Do not hesitate to contact us, it would be great to hear any feedback from our customer.

Ready to upgrade to Academic pro. The Academic Pro have the bunch of must-have features :

1. Editorial Team block
2. Unlimited Color picker
3. Support for statistic count for article and DOI view for each of article list on journal page
4. Better and more esthetic design for better view of your journal
5. Author Affiliation and country origin view in the article view
6. Better design and many features click here for more detail

Many of publisher attains the positive result after they use our premium theme.
It is time for you now to invest in the better OJS theme.

Muhammad Arifin

Arifin here, I writing about OJS and share knowledge about OJS