PKP is currently assessing the future development of Open Conference Systems (OCS). Our focus on Open Journal Systems (OJS) and Open Monograph Press (OMP) has resulted in less development for OCS over the past few years. We are now deciding whether to return to enhancing OCS, to continue keeping it “on hold”, or to step away from any future development completely.

The Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) has recently released a new guide to best practices in licensing and attribution for scholarly publishers. The guide provides a valuable overview of the importance of licensing policies for your publishing activities, making use of Creative Commons licenses, thinking about open data, and more.

The PKP Index is growing rapidly and now contains over 170,000 items from more than 500 different sources. Using PKP’s Open Harvester System (OHS) software, the PKP Index is open to all journals, proceedings, or monographs using OJS, OCS, or OMP.

If you were unable to attend the PKP AGM, or wanted to review some of it, we have made the recording available here. Highlights include a demonstration of OJS 3.0, an early look at our new Open Typesetting Stack (OTS – still in development), updates on our research projects, and a review of the past year’s activities.

PKP is very pleased to be part of the recently announced Canadian cyberinfrastructure for humanities and social sciences research grant awarded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).  This was a very competitive program and it is gratifying to see strong support for an initiative with its roots in scholarly publishing and strong connections to the Canadian humanities and social sciences sector.

In case you missed it, two new documents are available to help you quickly learn how to use OJS. Learning OJS 2.4.8 covers the latest version of the 2.x line, and Learning OJS 3.0 covers the first version of new OJS 3.x line. Both are full of screenshots and step-by-step instructions for using the software. These are first drafts of the documentation and are being reviewed and expanded by the PKP Documentation Interest Group.

Earlier this summer, PKP participated in the Keepers Extra workshop and became a signatory to the Working Together to Ensure the Future of the Digital Scholarly Record statement. PKP also provides data to the Keepers Registry about the OJS journals preserved in the PKP Private LOCKSS Network. We believe strongly in the work they are doing to help ensure digital preservation and wanted to share the statement with you.

In preparation for the PKP Annual General Meeting (open to the public) later this month, we have put together our 2015 Annual Report to the Community. This report reviews our achievements over the past 12 months and a financial summary for the 2015/2016 fiscal period.

The Public Knowledge Project’s virtual Annual General Meeting will be held on September 21, 2016 from 9am – Noon Pacific Time. The meeting will take place online, with all participants joining remotely.

There are still spots available for you to join us at the Fall PKP 2016 Sprint in beautiful Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada! The dates are Sunday and Monday October 2-3, 2016. The event will be co-hosted by PKP and our friends at the University of New Brunswick Library.

A quick reminder – our OJS 3 Overview webinar will be held on Wednesday, September 7, 2016 at 9am Pacific Time. We will be using a Hangout on Air, which you can view here: URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrKNEdYCBrY The webinar will be recorded and shared on the PKP Youtube channel for those of you unable to make the live broadcast.