Usability Testing for IAJIT OpenConf Journal Management System

The technological advances of the 21 century and the increasing use of the Internet have provided new ways to manage the processes of scientific journals, and led journals to employ electronic journal management systems using the web. Journals seeking to achieve significant benefits through their electronic journal management systems should create effective and usable web systems to ensure successful interaction and communication with their users (i.e. authors, reviewers, and advocators). Despite the importance of making journal management systems usable, there is a lack of research that investigates the usability of such systems. This paper presents the findings from a usability evaluation for IAJIT OpenConf Journal Management System (JMS) of the International Arab Journal of Information Technology (IAJIT) using user testing method. IAJIT OpenConf JMS is a customized version of OpenConf, which used the main screens of OpenConf. OpenConf is a common management system that is used worldwide to manage the processes of various scientific events (i.e. conference, workshops, and symposia). The focus of the evaluation was to identify usability problems of the system from the point of view of three groups of users: authors, reviewers, and advocators. The findings highlight nine areas with usability problems in the OpenConf management system related to its main screens and functionality. General recommendations to OpenConf management system were suggested.