Official Announcement: Update on OJS Operations and Editorial System Restoration

Dear Authors, Researchers, Reviewers, Readers, and Indexing Databases,

The Editorial Team of the Sarhad Journal of Management Sciences (SJMS) issues this announcement to provide clarity regarding our online journal portal and to offer full assurance to our academic community regarding the safety and security of all research submissions.

Due to software bugs within the Open Journal Systems (OJS) setup and the absence of a strong firewall, our OJS installation previously remained only partially operative. To safeguard the system, the C-Panel Administrator permitted only limited functionalities to run, while many key plugins were deliberately kept inactive.

Subsequently, a major organizational transition occurred within the university’s IT Department. The new IT team required significant time to familiarize themselves with the OJS infrastructure and implement necessary technical adjustments. A major installation and upgrade of the OJS platform was completed in December 2025. However, during that upgrade, the Quick Submit Plugin was kept inactive to ward off potential bugs and protect overall system stability.

During this extended period (from 2022 through June 2026), the journal’s submission and peer-review processes were managed manually via official email and surface mail to ensure uninterrupted editorial workflow.

We are pleased to inform you that while a few minor technical issues are still being ironed out, all major platform challenges have now been successfully resolved. Due to these ongoing refinements, we currently utilize the Quick Submit Plugin for uploading and publishing articles to the platform.

Safety Assurance for Authors and Researchers: We issue this notice to assure all authors and researchers that your submitted manuscripts, data, and published articles are completely safe and secure. There is absolutely no cause for concern regarding the integrity of your research records.

We express our heartfelt gratitude to all our researchers, reviewers, readers, and international indexing databases for your patience, understanding, and continued support throughout this transition.

 

Sincerely,

Editorial Board

Sarhad Journal of Management Sciences (SJMS)