These slides accompany an online workshop, which was organised by the CRAFT-OA project for the Diamond Open Access community in the fall of 2025. The workshop recording is available here: https://av.tib.eu/media/71699

The presentation is one of 5 workshops in the Meet the Experts series (https://av.tib.eu/series/1968), which is designed for OJS platform managers, institutional IT teams, and journal administrators who need practical support with installing, upgrading, or configuring Open Journal Systems (OJS). Whether you’re setting up OJS for the first time, migrating content, or customizing your journal’s appearance and functionality, the sessions focus on common scenarios and real needs. Each “Meet the Experts” workshop offers step-by-step demonstrations, useful checklists, and space to ask questions—making it easier for teams without deep OJS experience to get started and maintain a reliable, modern journal platform.

Workshop description: In this session, we explore how to make the most of Open Journal Systems (OJS) by using its built-in configuration options and plugins. You’ll learn practical tips and tricks to enhance the appearance and usability of your journal, choose and customize themes to match your preferred style, and make the system truly your own. While the default settings in OJS are a solid starting point, we believe that “default is good, but customized is better.”

We also discuss how different versions of OJS may behave slightly differently, but many aspects can still be tailored to fit your needs. The session will highlight recommended plugins, best practices for setting up your journal, and how to configure OJS for smooth workflow and optimal performance.