Digital Preservation Policy

Macaw Publications recognises the long-term preservation of scholarly content as an essential responsibility of responsible academic publishing. Published research should remain identifiable, retrievable, and accessible despite changes in publishing technology, hosting infrastructure, software platforms, journal operations, or publisher circumstances.

Macaw Publications manages its journals through Open Journal Systems (OJS). This policy establishes the publisher-level framework for electronic backup, preservation of scholarly content and metadata, persistent identification, technical recovery, platform migration, and continuity of access to previously published material.

Preservation • Continuity • Integrity • Long-Term Access

POLICY PURPOSE

Preserving the Scholarly Record

The purpose of digital preservation is to reduce the risk that published scholarly content becomes unavailable because of hardware failure, software failure, accidental deletion, cybersecurity incidents, hosting disruption, platform migration, organisational change, journal cessation, or discontinuation of publisher operations.

Preservation includes both the scholarly content itself and sufficient metadata, identifiers, rights information, and publication history to enable the content to remain understandable, discoverable, and recoverable.

Digital preservation is therefore treated as a continuing responsibility rather than a one-time technical activity.

POLICY SCOPE

Scholarly Content Covered

Preservation planning applies to published scholarly material and associated records necessary to maintain the integrity and continuity of the journal literature.

Published Articles

Research articles, reviews, case studies, communications, editorials, and other formally published scholarly content.

Volumes & Issues

Published volumes, issues, collections, tables of contents, and publication-history information.

Bibliographic Metadata

Article titles, authors, affiliations, abstracts, keywords, publication dates, citations, and associated bibliographic information.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary files formally hosted and published by the journal where technically and legally appropriate.

Editorial Notices

Corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, and other notices affecting the status of published articles.

Rights Information

PUBLISHING INFRASTRUCTURE

Open Journal Systems

Macaw Publications uses Open Journal Systems (OJS) for journal publishing and management.

The OJS environment is used to manage published articles, article metadata, journal issues, publication files, supplementary materials, editorial notices, and related journal records.

Preservation planning includes appropriate protection of the data and publication files required to restore or migrate the scholarly publishing environment when necessary.

Use of OJS itself is not represented as evidence of preservation through a particular external archival network. Any external preservation service is identified separately only when the relevant arrangement is active and verifiable.

BACKUP & PRESERVATION

Complementary Protection Measures

Electronic backup and long-term digital preservation serve related but different purposes.

Electronic backup supports restoration of the active publishing environment following technical failure, accidental deletion, database corruption, unsuccessful software changes, or other operational disruption.

Long-term digital preservation addresses the continued availability and recoverability of published scholarly content over time, including circumstances in which the original journal website or publisher is no longer operating.

Macaw Publications therefore seeks to avoid reliance on a single live server as the sole means of maintaining its scholarly record.

ELECTRONIC BACKUP

Operational Recovery of Journal Content

Appropriate electronic backup procedures are maintained for essential journal publishing information required for operational recovery.

Depending on the technical environment, backup may include publication databases, uploaded article files, article galleys, supplementary material, journal configuration, website assets, and other information necessary to reconstruct the publishing environment.

Backup arrangements should be reviewed following significant changes to hosting infrastructure, software, database systems, storage arrangements, or publication platforms.

Where reasonably practicable, critical backup information should not depend solely on the same storage location as the active publishing website.

PRESERVATION OBJECTIVES

Continuity and Integrity

Maintain continuing access to previously published scholarly content.

Protect publication files and metadata against foreseeable technical loss.

Preserve the relationship between scholarly content and its bibliographic record.

Maintain persistent identifiers and linking information wherever reasonably possible.

Preserve the history of corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, and other post-publication actions.

Support migration when software, hosting environments, or file formats change.

Maintain a continuity plan if an individual journal ceases publication.

Reduce dependence on the continued operation of a single technical system or publishing environment.

VERSION OF RECORD

Preservation of Published Scholarly Content

Preservation activities prioritise the formally published Version of Record together with the metadata necessary to identify and interpret that publication.

Where an article is later corrected, retracted, or subject to another formal post-publication notice, preservation should retain the relationship between the original article and the subsequent editorial record.

Substantive changes to the scholarly record should therefore not be managed through silent replacement or deletion where a transparent correction or retraction history is required.

METADATA & IDENTIFIERS

Maintaining Scholarly Discoverability

Preservation includes maintaining sufficient metadata to identify published articles and their relationship to the journal in which they appeared.

Relevant metadata may include article title, author information, affiliations, abstract, keywords, journal title, volume and issue information, publication date, persistent identifiers, copyright and licensing information, and post-publication status.

Where a DOI or another persistent identifier has been assigned, reasonable efforts should be made to maintain accurate destination information following changes in journal URLs, hosting infrastructure, or publishing platforms.

Persistent identification supports discovery and linking but is not represented as a substitute for long-term digital preservation.

EXTERNAL PRESERVATION

Independent Long-Term Archiving

Macaw Publications may use recognised independent digital preservation or archival services as an additional layer of protection for participating journals.

External preservation services are identified publicly only after the relevant journal's participation, deposit, or preservation status has been established and can be reasonably verified.

Availability of an OJS plugin, integration option, or technical compatibility with a preservation service is not by itself treated as evidence that journal content has been successfully preserved through that service.

Where a verified external preservation arrangement is active, the applicable journal should identify that preservation service on its journal-level preservation or archiving information page.

DISTRIBUTED ACCESS

Institutional and Scholarly Repositories

Lawful author self-archiving and repository deposit can provide additional distributed access to scholarly publications.

Authors may deposit permitted versions of their articles in institutional repositories, subject repositories, funder repositories, or other appropriate scholarly repositories in accordance with the copyright, licensing, and self-archiving policy of the relevant journal.

Repository distribution supplements the publisher's preservation strategy and should not automatically be treated as a replacement for maintaining the Version of Record and its associated metadata.

PLATFORM CONTINUITY

Migration and Technological Change

OJS upgrades, hosting changes, domain changes, or migration to another publishing environment should be managed in a manner that protects the continuity of published scholarly content.

Preserve essential publication files and databases before major migration activities.

Maintain article, volume, issue, and bibliographic metadata.

Preserve DOI and other persistent identifier relationships.

Maintain correction and retraction relationships.

Update persistent links and destinations where necessary.

Verify representative scholarly content following migration where practicable.

JOURNAL CESSATION

If a Journal Stops Publishing

Cessation of new publication should not result in unnecessary disappearance of previously published scholarly content.

If an individual Macaw Publications journal permanently ceases accepting or publishing new manuscripts, reasonable measures will be taken to maintain the accessibility and bibliographic integrity of its previously published content.

The continuity record should retain published articles, relevant metadata, persistent identifiers, licensing information, corrections, retractions, and other information necessary to understand the journal's scholarly record.

Continuing access may be supported through existing publishing infrastructure, verified preservation arrangements, repositories, archival transfer, or an appropriate successor publishing arrangement.

PUBLISHER CONTINUITY

If Publisher Operations Cease

Digital preservation planning is intended to reduce dependence on the continued operation of Macaw Publications itself.

If Macaw Publications permanently ceases publishing operations, reasonable measures will be taken, where legally and technically feasible, to maintain access to previously published scholarly content and associated metadata through available preservation copies, repositories, archival arrangements, successor arrangements, or another appropriate continuity mechanism.

Existing copyright and Open Access licensing conditions applicable to published articles continue to govern lawful preservation, distribution, and reuse of those publications.

JOURNAL TRANSFER

Continuity During Publisher or Ownership Change

Where a journal is legitimately transferred to another publisher, institution, society, owner, or publishing platform, preservation planning should seek to maintain continuity of the existing scholarly record.

Appropriate transfer planning should address published files, article metadata, issue history, persistent identifiers, copyright and licensing information, corrections, retractions, and relevant preservation records.

Public preservation information should be updated where the responsible preservation or publishing arrangement changes.

JOURNAL-LEVEL TRANSPARENCY

Preservation Information for Individual Journals

Because preservation arrangements may differ among journals, each individual Macaw Publications journal should display preservation information that accurately reflects the arrangements applicable to that journal.

Electronic backup and continuity information.

The actual long-term preservation approach applicable to the journal.

The name of any active external preservation service where participation has been verified.

Repository and self-archiving information where applicable.

The continuity arrangement that applies if the journal ceases publication.

Updated preservation information following material changes to hosting, publishing platforms, ownership, or archival arrangements.

PRESERVATION TRANSPARENCY

No Unverified Archiving Claims

Macaw Publications seeks to ensure that public preservation statements correspond with actual technical and archival arrangements.

A journal will not be represented as preserved through the PKP Preservation Network, LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, Portico, or another named archival service unless the applicable preservation arrangement has been established and can be reasonably verified.

Installation of a plugin or availability of a technical integration does not by itself constitute confirmation that scholarly content has been successfully deposited or preserved.

Planned, pending, inactive, or unverified preservation arrangements should not be presented as completed archival coverage.

POLICY GOVERNANCE

Review of Preservation Arrangements

Digital preservation arrangements should be reviewed periodically and following material changes to the publishing infrastructure.

Review may include hosting changes, OJS upgrades, server migration, database changes, storage arrangements, domain changes, preservation services, security risks, journal transfers, and relevant developments in scholarly publishing infrastructure.

Journal-level preservation statements should be corrected when they no longer reflect the arrangements actually in operation.

Preservation policies and public archival claims must reflect actual publishing practice. Reference to an external preservation network or archival organisation does not imply participation, certification, endorsement, accreditation, or indexing unless the applicable relationship has been established and can be verified.

POLICY CONTACT

Digital Preservation Enquiries

Publisher-level preservation enquiries

Questions concerning preservation arrangements applicable to a particular journal should normally be directed first to the editorial or administrative contact of that journal.

Publisher-level enquiries concerning electronic backup, long-term preservation, OJS continuity, journal transfer, platform migration, archival arrangements, or preservation information may be directed to:

Macaw Publications
H.No. 4-123/8/172, Road No. 1, Indraprastha Colony,
Hathiguda, Hayath Nagar, Hyderabad,
Telangana – 501505, India

Email: publisher@macawpublications.com

Policy version: 1.0 | Review cycle: Periodic review and revision as required

LONG-TERM SCHOLARLY CONTINUITY

Preserve the Record. Maintain Its Integrity. Sustain Access.

Macaw Publications is committed to maintaining the continuity of published scholarship through responsible management of its OJS publishing environment, appropriate electronic backup, preservation of scholarly content and metadata, persistent identification, platform continuity, and verified external preservation arrangements where applicable.

Preservation • Continuity • Integrity • Accessibility