This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on October 13, 2025 - October 19, 2025

When it comes to academic journal publications, the biggest challenge is balancing the speed to publication and the quality of the paper. Ideally, a published journal should be of high standard and released promptly after submission to ensure relevance and real-world applicability. However, gaps in the manual process make this difficult to achieve.

“When there is a delay, authors are not very happy because they are losing out, especially in fast-moving fields like medical AI (artificial intelligence) or climate change. Delays can affect the relevance and impact of the research, as well as real-world applications,” explains Ramesh Balakrishnan, founder and CEO of OpusSoft, a journal management platform.

This is where OpusSoft comes into the picture. The platform digitises and uses AI to automate a large portion of the processes for journal reviews, from online submissions to payment and the final publication of the research paper.

There is a similar international software available with the same functions as OpusSoft, Ramesh says. However, despite meeting 90% of the requirements of smaller journals, it is inaccessible due to its price and inability to be customised, he adds.

“I was approached to build a journal management platform for a client when I was working at my previous company. They wanted a simplified, easier and cheaper version of the system. The client said they didn’t have the budget to subscribe to the platform and if they had small customisations to be made, it wasn’t easy to do so,” he explains.

“The international software is not flexible because it was developed to be one-size-fits-all. Hence, building a system from scratch seemed more feasible for them.”

With the market insights and experience gained from developing the software, Ramesh built OpusSoft to be offered to universities and other related organisations as a software-as-a-service (SaaS).

Having a local platform like OpusSoft doesn’t just make publishing easier, he points out. It also creates a ripple effect in the entire research ecosystem, empowering local journals to meet international standards more quickly.

“This means that Malaysian research becomes more visible and more citable on the global stage. That, in turn, motivates more researchers to publish locally, rather than sending their work abroad.”

Ramesh says this also boosts the position of universities as better-indexed journals help institutions climb the global rankings, enabling them to attract more funding, collaborations and international students.

“At the end of the day, it benefits the economy. By making Malaysia a hub for knowledge production, we encourage innovation, patents and new industries. The multiplier effect starts with journals, but spreads to researchers, universities, the country’s reputation and ultimately the economy.”

OpusSoft’s clients include the Malaysian Journal of Microbiology, Journal of Tropical Biomedicine, Malaysian Veterinary Medical Association, Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, Malaysian Society for Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, National Cancer Society Malaysia and Malaysian Journal of Nutrition.

The system is separated into two parts, the first being the author’s dashboard, where researchers submit their papers to journals to be reviewed for publication. Here, researchers can see how many papers have been submitted and their status. The journals’ editorial teams will then be notified of a paper submission for review.

The other part is the editorial dashboard, where representatives from the journals can see the number of papers received to be reviewed. Ramesh explains that there are typically two to seven members in an editorial team, and each person plays a different role, such as pre-screening and plagiarism checks.

The system gives the editors a breakdown of the number of papers received, the subject areas of the papers, and a snapshot of the most popular subject areas. It shows editors the timeline of each paper and the average number of days it takes to be reviewed.

“We can give them a detailed report to understand the process. We can also [show] the papers received based on countries, the top five reviewers, those who are actively reviewing papers in the journal and how it is distributed worldwide,” says Ramesh.

The dashboard is built for bigger journals used by universities, he adds. Universities tend to have multiple journals, all of which can be viewed in one dashboard.

“The international software does not provide this kind of reporting or dashboard, where they can keep track of all the journals in one single dashboard. This is a real value-add to universities that have multiple journals under them,” he explains, adding that the journals pay for a subscription to OpusSoft, leaving it free for researchers to use.

OpusSoft focuses on integration, automation and AI, with features such as IThenticate for integrated plagiarism checks, a payment gateway to accept online payments from authors, Web of Science (WoS) Reviewer Locator to access a large reviewer database and Crossref for Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Registration for papers.

DOI registration is the process of obtaining and registering a unique, persistent digital identifier for a research object, such as an article or dataset. This registration is performed through a DOI registration agency, which assigns a DOI (a unique identifier) and links it to the object’s metadata and location, enabling persistent, reliable access and discoverability for users and machines.

On the automation front, OpusSoft is able to auto-generate receipts upon payment and reviewer certificates to reviewers upon review completion, and has DOI Assignment to insert the DOI numbers back into the papers. The highlight, says Ramesh, is Galley Proof, where automated formatting, which normally takes days to weeks, can be done under 10 seconds.

“Galley proof is basically formatting the paper in a way that is acceptable for that journal. Every journal will have its specific formatting, from line spacing and font size to paragraphing and where to put headers and tables. Our galley proofing uses AI and we can set up the formatting in our system,” he says.

OpusSoft also has its own AI recommendation engine that identifies potential reviewers for the journals, based on the social network of high-quality authors and reviewers within the system, using its sophisticated algorithms.

Ramesh says the company is currently working on developing a journal indexing readiness module, which can be likened to a fitness tracker for journals. It informs editorial teams about how close they are to meeting Scopus, WoS or Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) standards and what gaps they need to close as well as provides a road map to achieve indexing.

Scopus, WoS and DOAJ are worldwide citation databases. Scopus and WoS index both open access and commercial journals while DOAJ is solely for open access journals.

“Indexing is a prestige marker for journals. It increases visibility, citations and reputation. Many local journals fail to get indexed because they don’t fully understand the requirements or they lack a structured way to prepare,” says Ramesh.

“This module acts as a bridge, giving editors a clear path to international recognition.”

He adds that OpusSoft has also established a framework that will enable it to introduce AI-assisted peer review soon. “We don’t see AI replacing humans. Instead, we see it as an assistant that helps editors and reviewers work more efficiently, spotting red flags and checking compliance.

“Human judgement remains central, but AI makes the process faster and more reliable.”

Ramesh says he is looking to expand OpusSoft’s footprint to Indonesia and is open to partnering with representatives from the country to tailor the platform to local needs.

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