Khulisa Journals November 2025 Communiqué

[Ina Smith]

Dear Khulisa Journal Editors/Journal Managers,

We are heading towards the end of the year, and I just want to wrap-up a few last things.

Thank you for your feedback!
I shared a brief survey with 16 Khulisa Journals. 100% of the participants indicated that they are 100% satisfied with the support provided! Thank you on behalf of myself and Nason. It is an absolute pleasure and privilege working with editors and journal managers who are positive, are patient with us, and who understand how open source works! We are looking forward continuing this collaboration in 2026!

OJS upgrade January 2026
Our OJS will be upgraded from Version 3.4.0-9 to Version 3.5.0-2 over the weekend of 10–11 January 2026. Please let me know at any time if this is inconvenient for you.

We now also have our own test/development server, which will help Nason a great deal. A few introductory videos on OJS 3.5 are available on YouTube. I will dedicate our first Khulisa Lunch Hour Session next year to giving you an overview (once I have had time to familiarise myself). I hope you are looking forward to the improvements as much as I am!

All reported bugs – except for a few from SAJS – have been resolved, and I am happy to say that Khulisa Journals continues to run smoothly. 

OJS data security policy

https://journals.assaf.org.za/index.php/index/dataprivacy

Please take note of the following which has been added to the above policy:

• At server level, we also use fail2ban and Apache web server–level blocking of known “bad” IP addresses to mitigate against unreasonable or malicious actors.
• A monitoring system keeps track of all activity on the website, including file integrity monitoring, failed login attempts, malware scanning, etc.
• For availability alerts, we use UptimeRobot (free tier) to notify us if the application is down. This service also maintains a log of uptime/downtime events, which can be downloaded as a CSV file for further analysis and record-keeping.
• On backup, we currently back up the database, application, and data files, and these are moved to server-attached object storage. 

Thanks Nason for the incredible work you do in your capacity as system administrator in maintaining our OJS! We appreciate you!

Screening for plagiarism (e.g. Using iThenticate)

Khulisa/ASSAf does not prescribe a single, fixed maximum similarity index for all journals, because the percentage alone can be misleading. Instead, our approach is that the iThenticate report should serve as a screening tool to highlight risk, with decisions based primarily on where the overlap occurs and how the text has been used.

As a general guideline, we recommend the following iThenticate settings for initial screening:

• Exclude the bibliography/references
• Exclude quoted material (marked with quotation marks)
• Exclude small matches (e.g. minimum 8-10 words)
• Exclude small sources (e.g. <1-2% of the text or <20-25 words)

With these filters applied, the overall percentage becomes more meaningful, but we still avoid using it as a strict cut-off. As a very rough indication:

• 0-10% is usually low risk, but still worth a quick scan
• 10-20% is common and often acceptable, particularly if overlap is mainly in methods or standard phrases
• 20-30% requires careful checking, especially if there are longer blocks from the same source
• Above ±30-35% (after filtering) is generally a red flag and often leads to desk rejection, especially where there is clear copying of sentences and paragraphs from published work

Khulisa Lunch Hour Sessions
We had a few successful brainstorming workshops during the past 2 months. Thank you so much for all who could participate! Some topics coming up in the next year, include, among others: referencing styles & importance thereof, converting galleys to JATS XML, depositing DOAJ metadata, creating a Crossmark file (authoritative version of a file), plagiarism checks and reports, and many more!! Please let me know anytime should you want to learn anything new (technology wise).

December leave

I will be taking leave from 8 December 2025 until 8 January 2026 (dates included). Please get in touch with Nason anytime, should you have any urgeent questions.

With kind regards,
Ina

Ina Smith (her/she)

SciELO SA Planning Manager | Scholarly Publishing Programme
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)

Senior Ambassador for Africa
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

DOAJ & Diamond: 22 years

ASSAf Switchboard: +27 12 349 6600    
Whatsapp: +27(0)82 818 0117
Email: i...@assaf.org.za and i...@doaj.org 

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ASSAf Website: https://www.assaf.org.za/
DOAJ Website: https://doaj.org/

 

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