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Release Notes: Books & Presses (2023)
Notes on the live releases to the Ubiquity book and press platform are listed below, including bug fixes, new features, and enhancements to existing functionality. Bug fixes specific to individual installations are not listed. The dates given are for the end of the development sprint cycle, not the exact date that the release was completed.
Release notes for other years can be found on our central Release Notes page.
See our Release notes: Journal platform for similar updates on our journal platform.
Dec 19, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various | Enhancement | Press platform: backend implementation | Ongoing implementation of the new press platform backend infrastructure. Released work for testing include:
|
| PLAT-1095 | Feature | Rua: Recaptcha added to registration form | Recaptcha has been added to the Rua registration form to ensure that only valid users can create an account and thus increase the security of the platform. |
| PLAT-917 | Enhancement | Press site: inreased Recaptcha configuration | The Recaptcha configuration on the current press site contact forms have been increased to help remove spam emails. |
| PLAT-1102 | Feature | Rua: SDG Goals | Each book in Rua will now be able to be assigned one or more of the EU’s Sustainable Development Goals. If a book is assigned to an SDG, this will feed through into the new press site (not the current site). |
| PLAT-1099 | Feature | Rua: Custom licenses | Rua previously had hard coded license options. These are now more flexible, with Press Managers able to update & add license options from the central Rua management pages. Instructions on how to add a license can be found in this article on the Knowledge Base. |
| PLAT-1134 | Bug fix | Rua: Bad gateway errors | Multiple ‘bad gateway’ errors were reported on a subset of Rua installations. These were investigated and fixed. |
| PLAT-1104 | Enhancement | Metrics: Check and update bot list | The list of bots/internet spiders that are exluded from the journal and book metrics has been reviewed and updated to ensure that the data discounts as many ‘robots’ as possible and focuses on human usage. |
Dec 5, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various | Enhancement | Press platform: frontend implementation | Refactoring of the initial implementation of the new press frontend. |
| Various | Enhancement | Press platform: backend implementation | Ongoing implementation of the new press platform backend infrastructure. Released work for testing include:
|
| PLAT-1020 | Bug fix | 'no license' doesn't remove pre-existing licences | A bug was discovered where changing a license assigned to a book to ‘no license’ didn’t remove the previous license. This has been fixed so that the old license is now removed. |
Nov 21, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-786 | Bug fix | ‘How to Cite’ data correction | The ‘how to cite’ citation export function was showing inconsistently. This has now been fixed. |
| PLAT-891 | Bug fix | Metrics: missing chaper downloads | During the migration onto the new OPERAS metrics platform some chapter download metrics were not transferred. This has now been corrected so that all data thatt was on the old metrics platform is showing on the new one. |
| PLAT-980 | Enhancement | Metrics: graph colours | The graph colours for the OPERAS metrics have been updated to make the division between different data sources easier to identify. |
| Various | Enhancement | Press platform: frontend implementation | Ongoing implementation of the new press platform websites. Released work for testing include:
|
| Various | Enhancement | Rua: new platform preparation | Preparation work for the press migration continues, including:
|
Nov 7, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various | Enhancement | Press platform: frontend implementation | Ongoing implementation of the new press platform websites. Released work for testing include:
|
| Various | Enhancement | Rua: new platform preparation | Creating and testing data migration scripts, enhancing the API, file transfers and moving Rua to new Kubernetes clusters. |
| PLAT-1018 | Enhancement | Rua: swiftsubmit | Streamlining and removing bugs from the Swiftsubmit function, which allows books to be added into Rua without having to use the author submission form. Access to this function has also been added to the main Manager dashboard. |
Oct 24, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various | Enhancement | Press platform: frontend implementation | Ongoing implementation of the new press platform websites. Released work for testing include:
|
| PLAT-928 | Enhancement | Rua: Featured Book function | In preparation for the new press platform, a new function has been added to Rua so that individual books can be marked as ‘Featured’ so that they will appear on the press website homepage. This will allow press managers to more easily manage their homepage designs. This function was previously not available to press managers in an easily available interface. [this setting will only become functional when on the new press site] |
| PLAT-989 | New feature | Rua: Additional publishers | Rua will now allow multiple publisher imprints to publish from a single Rua installation. Previously all books from Rua would be tagged as coming from the same publisher. Once a press is on the new press platform it will be possible to tag individual books with a specific publisher name, location and logo, all of which will be surfaced on the book’s publication page. [this setting will only become functional when on the new press site] |
Oct 10, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various | Enhancement | Press platform: frontend implementation | Ongoing implementation of the new press platform websites. Pages released for testing include: Homepage, Custom pages, Book publication, Book series, Series list, Contact, Journal list, Book list, Search. Initial SEO and metadata tags also added. |
| Various | Enhancement | Rua: new platform preparation | Ongoing preparation of Rua for the new press platform, including:
|
| PLAT-981 | Bug fix | Press platform: Chapter page URL structure | Tthe existing press platform was not allowing URLs to be created if the DOI included multiple '/'. This has been fixed so that the DOI structure cannot break the resulting URL. |
Sep 26, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-892 | Enhancement | Press platform: Metrics loading times | Speed improvements to the loading time for book metrics and the resulting graphs. |
| PLAT-958 | Enhancement | Press platform: Metrics labeling | Update to the labeling of metrics graphs, so that it is clearer what the source of the data is. |
| PLAT-921 | Enhancement | Rua: Marc records | In anticipation of the new press platform, Rua is now able to have MARC records uploaded on a book-level, which will then be made available on the publication page. |
| Various | Enhancement | Press platform: frontend implementation | Ongoing implementation of the new press platform websites. |
Sep 12, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-924 | Enhancement | Rua: Post-publication book reviews | In preparation to the new press platform, Rua has been updated so that it will be possible for Press Managers to add post-publication reviews/comments for thier books directly into the book metadata. Once live, this data will show publicly on the new press platfom. |
| PLAT-936 | Bug fix | Press platfrom: fix to news feeds | The homepage news feed was not updating on some press. This error has been fixed so that all external news feeds should update automatically on the press homepage. |
| PLAT-930 | Enhancement | Rua/Press platform: migration preparation | Investigatory work is continuing to ensure that all features and data will be built into the new press platform. |
Sep 5, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-851 | Enhancement | Rua: Series settings & API | Update to the Rua Books Series settings page so that more of the series data can be managed centrally. Along with the series title and description, the Press Manager is now able to add the ISSN, series image, sponsor logos and generate a custom URL for the series page. (in preparation for the new press platfrom) |
Aug 22, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-852 | Bug fix | Press platform: chapter author middle names | When a book had chapters, and the chapters author had no middle names, then the middle names were displaying as ‘None’ on the frontend. This has been fixed so that if no middle name is provided then the frontend will not display anything for this field. |
| PLAT-896 | Enhancement | Rua: Add the ability to view, edit and delete a Physical Format | The Editor → Production tab previously did not allow the Production team to view, edit or delete a Physical Format. Each of these functions have now been introduced. |
| PLAT-897 | Enhancement | Rua: Refactor Editor Production Views and include Retailer functionality | Code refactoring and improved UI for the Production pages. |
PLAT-898 & PLAT-899 |
Enhancement | Rua: Add Retailers to New Published Books API | Addition of the book retailers data into the Rua API for each book that is published. |
Aug 8, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-815 | Bug fix | Rua: Review form selection display error | When an editor previously selected a review form to send to a peer reviewer, there were unwanted numbers prefixing the form titles. These have been removed to ensure that the display is as uncluttered as possible. |
| PLAT-817 | Enhancement | Rua: Add cc, bcc and ‘from’ data into the Email Log | The email log previously only showed email addresses that were in the ‘to’ field of the email. The logs have been updated so that the cc, bb and from addresses are also included. |
| PLAT-819 | New feature | Rua: Add 'Assign Editor' email template & function | Previously, when an Editor was assigned to a full book submission, no email was sent out to notify them of this action. This has been updated, so that each new editorial assignment/unassignment now generates an editable email that will be sent to the relevant editor. The email templates can be found in the Settings menu, with the title ‘assign_editor_to_book’ and ‘unassign_editor_from_book’. |
| PLAT-890 | Enhancement | Rua: Enhanced chapter ordering | Chapter management has been improved so that the UI includes a drag and drop function to allow chapters to be easily reordered by the Production team. The fields required to create new chapters have also been ‘cleaned’ so that the UI is more user friendly. |
| PLAT-889 | Bug fix | Rua: Deletion of chapter formats | When pressing the button for a chapter format, the user would be presented with an error message, without deleting the format. This has been fixed so that the delete button is functional. |
| PLAT-834 | Enhancement | Rua: Retailer functionality | In preparation for the new press platform, the functionality associated with the retailer buttons for each book publication has been revised. This will not change the functionality on the current publication platform, but will allow enhanced flexibility for retailer options on the upcoming new press platform. |
Jul 25, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-793 | Enhancement | Press platform: Plausible setup on press sites | As part of the move away from Google Analytics (GA), all partner press websites are now connected to Plausible. Historic data from GA has been migrated into the new account. |
| PLAT-754 & PLAT-773 | Enhancement | Press platform: release of OPERAS metrics | The press platforms are now supported by the OPERAS metrics platform to provide usage data for all book publications. Previous metrics have been migrated and the new platform is being used to track all new usage. Additions to the new metrics platform include in-page graphs, OAPEN data included in the download data, hypothes.is annotations and online citations from Wikipedia and Wordpress. |
| PLAT-805 | Big fix | Rua: Order of authors now retained | When publishing a book, the order in which the authors appeared in Rua was often changed during the publication process, resulting in the need to manually change the order post-publication. This has now been fixed so that the order will be retained. |
| PLAT-814 | Enhancement | Rua: New API | A new API has been created for Rua, as part of the project to move all partner presses to a new platform. The API will be tested and developed further over the coming months. |
| PLAT-816 | Bug fix | Rua: Author names prefixed by '1’ | A bug had been introduced where the author list during submission of a book displayed a '1’ before each author name. This has been fixed so that only the names display. |
| PLAT-822 | Enhancement | Rua: security improvements | Core Rua infrastructure has been upgraded to enhance security of the platform. |
| PLAT-824 | Enhancement | Rua: Remove the need for an Author to have an Email mandatory | An email address is no longer a mandatory field when entering author data into a book submission (emails are still recommended and submitting users still do require emails). |
| PLAT-833 | Enhancement | RUA: Retaining contributor data when a submission changes between Monograph and Edit Volume | If a book submission was incorrectly submitted as a monograph or edited volume and then later swapped category, the author/editor information was duplicated as both author and editor data and thus needed to be edited. Rua will no longer do this, so that the re-assignment to monograph/edited volumn will correctly transfer the author/editor data into the mirrored location. |
| PLAT-845 | Enhancement | RUA: Add ability to alter chapter Author sequence | The previous method to alter the order of chapter authors was labour intensive. A new drag and drop function has been added so that ordering can be changed with minimal effort. |
Jun 27, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-729 | Feature | RUA: Strip properties from uploaded Reviewer files | When a reviewer uploads a file as part of their review feedback the source file may contain properties that disclose their identity, potentially compromising an anonymous peer review process. A feature has been added so that if the Rua installation has the default_review_type setting as 'Closed ' OR 'Open without Reviewer info ' then the identifying properties of file(s) submitted by the reviewer are removed. |
| PLAT-765 | Bug fix | Rua: Improve formatting for downloaded proposal forms | Once received, a proposal can be downloaded as a .docx file by the editorial team to help share and process the information. The display of this file has been improved so that the exported download of the submitted proposal form will be easier to read and be closer to the version seen within Rua. |
| PLAT-754 | Enhancement | Press platform: enable server logs | In preparation for the upcoming OPERAS metrics being displayed for books, all press sites are now having their server logs added to the OPERAS database. These logs will supply data for book usage in the future. |
| PLAT-773 | Enhancement | Press platform: Improve book metrics widget | In preparation for the upcoming OPERAS metrics being displayed for books, the widget that will display the usage data has been updated to incorporate stacked graphs when multiple data sources are being used. This will allow the user better insight into where the usage is coming from. |
| PLAT-774 | Enhancement | Rua: Upgrade to latest version of Django | (ongoing) Rua infrastructure is being updated to be on the latest version of Django, the Python-based framework that Rua is build with. |
| PLAT-799 | Bug fix | Rua: past dates required for Publication Date | A recent update to date fields (see PLAT-758, below) caused an error, where the publication date for a book could only be set for the present day or future. This was a problem when loading back lists of books. This has now been corrected, so that the publication date can be in the past, present or future. |
Jun 13, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-756 | Enhancement | Press platform: Plausible metrics | Preparatory work for the implementation of Plausible.io and the decommissioning of support for Google Analytics. |
| PLAT-772 | Bug fix | RUA: Checkbox help text | It was previously possible to insert a checkbox into a proposal or review form without any accompanying help text, making the box essentially meaningless to the user. The form creation process has now been updated so that if a checkbox is added to a form it is mandatory that accompanying help text is also added. The Rua manager will not be able to save the new field within the form unless this is added. |
May 30, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-747 | Enhancement | RUA: Improved form workflow | Changes to the Proposal and Review form creation workflow have been implemented so that each form is now created in a single workflow, rather than being split into two separate tasks. |
| PLAT-677 | Enhancement | RUA: Filter inactive/active review forms | The administration pages for Proposal and Review forms are now displayed with separate tables for Active and Inactive forms, helping to make differentiate between forms that are in-use and those that may be archived/obsolete. |
| PLAT-748 | Enhancement | RUA: Update to form table ordering | The administration pages for Proposal and Review forms are now displayed in in alphabetic order of the Form Name to help identify and manage the forms. |
| PLAT-761 | Bug fix | RUA: 'Add a Reviewer' - can submit without selecting a reviewer. | It was previously possible for book editors to log a peer review or editorial review assignment without actually selecting a reviewer, leading to confusion in the editorial workflow. The platform has been updated so that it is no longer possible to complete a review assignment without a reviewer being selected. |
| PLAT-758 | Bug fix | RUA: All date fields can only be set in the future | Date fields (e.g. reviewer due dates, or proposal fields) could previously be set in the past. As such assignments would only be in the future so the system now restricts the user to only input a future date so that bad data cannot be entered. |
PLAT-768 & PLAT-767 |
Enhancement | RUA: Add email function to Update Due Date function | The function to notify a reviewer when their due date had been changed was previously only available on some assignment displays. The function to email the user when an assignment due date is changed has been added to all relevant pages. |
| PLAT-749 | Bug fix | RUA: Add email tag to email templates | Update to email template tags so that both {{book.owner.profile.salutation_name }} and {{submission.owner.profile.salutation_name}} will render the submitting author’s name when included within the sending email. |
| PLAT-734 | Bug fix | RUA: activation-deactivation of licenses | The manager > Licences page was not saving the licence configuration correctly if updated. This has been corrected so that changes to the licence availability will be saved and reflected on the user interface. |
| PLAT-730 | Enhancement | RUA: Declined review assignments list | If a reviewer declines a review invitation for a full submission the interface previously had a limited space to display the complete list of reviewer details. This display has now been updated so that the list can scroll, allowing for editors to see the full list regardless of how many users are listed. |
| PLAT-702 | Bug fix | Rua: Merge users not working | The function to merge two existing users into a single profile was not function. This has now been updated so that the ‘merge users’ option in the Press Editor options is functional. |
| PLAT-728 | Enhancement | Rua: Add email queue (celery) | Emails sent via Rua are now using infrastructure that uses a asynchronous task queue/job queue so that email sending is more robust. The Rua users will see no difference, but the behind the scenes email workflow be more reliable with logs of each action created. |
| PLAT-697 | Bug fix | Press platform: Spanish language pack updated | The press platform previously didn’t have a translation added for ‘metrics’, meaning that this text was not displayed for book metrics. The translation has now been added so that this term now displays. |
May 15, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-694 | Enhancement | Rua: email code review and ‘show the sender name’ | A comphrensive review of the code related to emails was completed and associated tasks that arose from that. Included within this was work to ensure that the senders name appears in the recipient inbox in a clear and understandable display. Previously some emails would not have displayed the sender, making them more likely to be ignored by the recipient. All emails now display the sender name or primary contact for the Rua installation. |
| PLAT-695 | Bug fix | Rua license setting | A recent enhancement to the licensing options led to the unintended consequence that a Press Editor could inadvertently change the licence without meaning to when editing other metadata. The user display has now been updated so that it is not possible to change the licence without a clear user interaction with the licence field. |
| PLAT-722 | Bug fix | RUA: mandatory fields in proposal & review forms were not set as required for the user | Despite forms having some elements set to be mandatory, the user interface was infact allowing forms to be submitted even when these fields were empty. This error has been corrected so that it is now not possible to submit a form is any mandatory fields have not been populated. |
May 2, 2023
ID |
Bug/ Feature/ Enhancement |
Title |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLAT-678 | Enhancement | Rua: Add date stamps to Editorial Review page | Editorial Review Assignments now show the editorial reviewer the date that all historic reviews were completed. Previously they had access to the review details but did not know when they had been completed |
| PLAT-676 | Bug fix | Rua: Peer Review Form information text cannot be changed | An error was previously generated when a Press Editor tried to change the Title, Introduction text, or Completion text for a review form, leading to the inability to save such changes. The core form information, such as the title, can now be changed without causing this error or creating a new version of the form. |
| PLAT-671 | Bug fix | RUA: Diacritic characters | Certain displays in RUA previously displayed the HTML code instead of rendered diacritic character. This display error has now been corrected. |
| PLAT-726 | Bug fix | RUA: Review Form Dropdown showing False after name | When assigning a proposal review form, the editor was being presented with a list of the available review forms, but they had the word ‘false’ appended to the form name. This has been corrected so that the text does not show. |
| PLAT-700 | Bug fix | RUA: Possible to create users without a registered contact email | It was possible to create users that did not have an email address associated with their user details. This would mean that the editorial workflow would appear to be functional, but no emails would be sent. This has now been updated so that all user accounts must always have an email account in their profile. |
| PLAT-680 | Enhancement | RUA: code clean up | General clean up of unused/unfunctional code |
| PLAT-679 | Bug fix | RUA: Editorial reviews not available in the admin database | The administrator account for each Rua installation showed errors when trying to access specific data from the database (not directly within the RUA user interface). This has been fixed. |
| PLAT-673 | Bug fix | RUA: code clean up | General code clean up of duplicate code relating to the upload and storage of files |