Lesson 1: Why Kotahi?

Why did we make Kotahi?

For years, academic publishing has been dominated by legacy systems developed in the last century. These outdated platforms rely on an industrial approach to workflow, which is no longer suitable for the evolving needs of the scholarly community. The world has changed significantly, with a growing emphasis on adaptive, collaborative processes. In response, we developed Kotahi, a modern platform designed to support a wide range of workflows—from traditional journals to publish-review-curate (PRC) and emergent scholar-led models.

Traditional submission systems are rigid and cannot accommodate the diverse content, workflows, or journal requirements of today's researchers. Complex interfaces frustrate users, email-driven communications cause delays, and production processes remain siloed externally without automation. Moreover, monolithic architectures hamper scalability and adaptability.

Kotahi is built to foster adaptive and collaborative processes, aligning with the rise of researcher-driven publishing.

Key Features of Kotahi:

• Diverse Workflows: Kotahi offers enormous flexibility to customize workflows according to the specific needs of traditional journals, PRC, and emergent scholar-led communications.

• Adaptive Processes: The platform integrates automated, real-time notifications and updates, eliminating delays caused by email-driven communication and enabling seamless collaboration.

• Collaborative Environment: Kotahi is designed to support collaborative processes, making it easier for researchers to work together and share their findings.

• Sophisticated Multitenancy: Kotahi supports the hosting of multiple journals, preprint review processes, and preprint servers within a single install.

• Automated Production: Automated PDF production ensures consistent, high-quality typesetting at scale, reducing manual intervention and errors.

• Microservices Architecture: This allows for independent scaling and updating of components, ensuring the platform remains robust and adaptable to future needs.

Kotahi is designed to improve traditional journal workflows while also providing a platform for post-publication review and emergent scholar-led communications. By enhancing existing workflows and accommodating new models, Kotahi represents the innovative future of research communication.

Now, you have the information at your fingertips to fully utilize Kotahi and transform your publishing processes, making them more adaptive, collaborative, and suited to the needs of today's scholarly community.