📚 Conference Publishing System

🎓 Bachelor's Thesis

Author: Maxim Merkurev

Year of diploma defense: 2024

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🧩 Project Overview

Conference Publishing System is a web platform developed to support the editorial and publishing process for academic conference proceedings.

The project was inspired by Open Journal Systems, but aims to address its shortcomings and adapt it to the actual workflow of academic publishing in universities. To achieve this, in-depth interviews were conducted with the management of FEFU Publishing House, existing issues were identified, and improvements were implemented.

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🎯 Project Goals

• 📑 Automate the editorial workflow
• 🧠 Optimize typesetting, reviewing, and publishing processes
• 🔁 Improve transparency in author-editor interactions
• ☁️ Integrate with Yandex Disk cloud storage and enable backup capabilities

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🧪 Deployment & Usage

The system was successfully used for:

• 13th "HUMANIORA FORUM – 2024" Conference
• 14th "HUMANIORA FORUM – 2025" Conference

The project is deployed on the FEFU School of Arts and Humanities server.

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🧰 Implemented Features

• ✅ Over 100 responsive pages
• ✅ Cloud storage subsystem for document submission and management
• ✅ Database in 3NF with logical replication
• ✅ Tools for backup and restore
• ✅ Email automation for notifications
• ✅ Role-based access: admin, section moderator, reviewer, author
• ✅ Docker integration
• ✅ Automatic document formatting module::
  • Adjusts fonts, margins, and heading styles
  • Removes prohibited elements and applies conference templates

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🎥 Video Tutorials

▶️ YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf6gC1wRM2y6jCYO396PGgVyIYftUHzp8

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🚀 Installation & Setup

📦 Requirements

• Docker
• Docker Compose

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🔧 Setup Instructions

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/Bit-Maximum/Conference-Publishing-System.git
cd Conference-Publishing-System

2. Configure required environment variables in the .env file. 📄 See ENVIRONMENT.md for details.

3. Build and run the containers:

docker compose up --build -d 

4. Collect static files:

docker exec -it -u 0 django python manage.py collectstatic --no-input 

The site will be available at: http://127.0.0.1/

5. 🧪 (Optional) Load demo data:

docker-compose exec db pg_restore \
  -U ${DB_USER} \
  -d ${DB_NAME} \
  -Fc --clean --if-exists --no-owner \
  --data-only /tmp/demo_database.dump

Replace ${DB_USER} and ${DB_NAME} with your values from .env. For example:

docker-compose exec db pg_restore \
  -U dbuser \
  -d dockerdjango \
  -Fc --clean --if-exists --no-owner \
  --data-only /tmp/demo_database.dump

📥 Default Login Credentials

Role	Email	Password
Administrator	admin@mail.com	admin
Section Moderator	staff@mail.com	staff
Conference Participant	ivan@mail.com	ivan

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Gallery

demo_1.mp4

demo_2.mp4

demo_3.mp4

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📄 Autoformatting in Action

The system automatically formats author-submitted documents according to conference requirements:

• Aligns headings
• Normalizes fonts and sizes
• Applies proper spacing
• Removes disallowed elements and incorrect styles
• Applies a consistent formatting template

Before Formatting	After Autoformatting

⚙️ The formatting module is built with python-docx and is triggered automatically when a document is uploaded via the conference interface.

📎 Implementation Deed

The result of this project was the official adoption of the system by the FEFU School of Arts and Humanities.

🤝 Acknowledgments

• To the leadership of FEFU Publishing House — for expert feedback
• To FEFU School of Arts and Humanities faculty — for testing the prototype
• To conference participants — for active feedback and suggestions