Archiving and Preservation Policy
Al-Qamar is committed to the long-term archiving, preservation, accessibility, and discoverability of its published scholarly content. The journal recognizes that digital preservation is an essential part of responsible academic publishing, research integrity, scholarly communication, and international indexing standards.
This policy explains how Al-Qamar preserves its published articles, issue records, metadata, editorial information, and digital files for future access.
Purpose of Archiving and Preservation
The purpose of Al-Qamar’s archiving and preservation policy is to ensure that published scholarly content remains available, identifiable, citable, and accessible over time. The journal aims to protect its academic record against accidental data loss, technical failure, website migration, file corruption, platform changes, or institutional restructuring.
Al-Qamar considers every published article part of the permanent scholarly record. Once an article is formally published, the journal seeks to preserve its article file, metadata, issue information, author details, abstract, keywords, references, DOI or article identifier where applicable, and publication history.
Current Preservation Arrangements
Al-Qamar currently preserves its published scholarly content through the following arrangements:
- the official online archive available on the journal website;
- article-level pages and issue records maintained through Open Journal Systems;
- institutional records maintained by Al-Qamar Islamic Research Institute, Lahore;
- backup copies of published article files, metadata, issue records, and essential publication data;
- DOI and article-level metadata records where applicable;
- author self-archiving under the journal’s open-access policy;
- the PKP Preservation Network, where enabled through the journal’s Open Journal Systems platform.
These preservation arrangements support long-term access, citation stability, metadata accuracy, indexing readiness, and protection of the journal’s scholarly record.
Use of PKP Preservation Network
Al-Qamar uses the PKP Preservation Network as part of its digital preservation strategy. The PKP Preservation Network provides preservation support for journals using Open Journal Systems and helps protect published journal content against loss of access, technical failure, platform change, or long-term digital risk.
Through the PKP Preservation Network, Al-Qamar strengthens the preservation of its published scholarly content and supports the long-term availability of article files, issue records, and essential publication metadata.
The journal’s use of the PKP Preservation Network reflects its commitment to responsible digital preservation, open-access publishing, and the protection of the scholarly record.
Digital Preservation of Published Content
Al-Qamar preserves published content in digital form through its online journal platform, institutional publishing records, and digital preservation arrangements. The journal maintains article-level files, issue records, metadata, and related publication information to support long-term scholarly access.
The preserved content may include article titles, author names, affiliations, abstracts, keywords, references, article PDFs, issue details, publication dates, DOI or permanent article links where applicable, and editorial metadata.
The journal aims to ensure that published content remains accessible through stable article pages, issue archives, institutional records, and preservation systems.
Online Archive
Al-Qamar maintains an online archive of its published issues and articles. Readers, researchers, authors, reviewers, indexing bodies, and academic institutions may access previous issues through the journal website.
The online archive supports transparency, citation tracking, academic verification, digital preservation, and long-term discoverability of published research.
Institutional Preservation
Al-Qamar is published by Al-Qamar Islamic Research Institute, Lahore. The publisher maintains institutional records of published content, journal issues, article files, metadata, and essential publication data.
Institutional preservation supports continuity of access in case of website redesign, platform upgrade, domain migration, server change, or technical maintenance.
Website and Platform Preservation
Al-Qamar uses Open Journal Systems for submission, editorial processing, publication, issue management, metadata management, and archiving. The journal seeks to maintain the technical stability of its website and article archive through regular platform maintenance, database management, file preservation, and backup practices.
During any website migration, platform upgrade, or domain change, the journal aims to preserve article URLs, metadata, issue archives, article files, DOI records where applicable, and indexing-related information as carefully as possible. Where required, redirects may be used to maintain access to previously published content.
Backup Policy
Al-Qamar follows a backup approach to reduce the risk of data loss. The journal aims to maintain backup copies of important publication files, website data, article PDFs, metadata, and issue records.
Backups may include server-level backups, platform/database backups, local institutional copies, and additional secure copies of published article files. These backups support recovery in case of technical failure, accidental deletion, cyber incident, hosting issue, or migration error.
Metadata Preservation
Al-Qamar recognizes that metadata is essential for indexing, discoverability, citation tracking, and long-term preservation. The journal therefore seeks to preserve article-level metadata, including author names, article titles, abstracts, keywords, references, issue details, publication dates, language information, DOI records, and permanent identifiers where applicable.
For non-English manuscripts, the journal encourages English and Roman-script metadata where required for indexing, international visibility, and accurate identification of published content.
Preservation of Article Files
The final published version of each article is preserved as the version of record. Al-Qamar seeks to maintain the integrity of the published article file and does not replace or alter the published version except where corrections, retractions, expressions of concern, or editorial notices are required under the journal’s publication ethics policy.
If a correction or editorial update is necessary, the journal aims to maintain a transparent record of the change.
Access Continuity
Al-Qamar aims to keep published content accessible to readers without unnecessary interruption. In case of temporary website maintenance, technical disruption, hosting change, or platform migration, the journal seeks to restore access as soon as possible.
The journal also encourages stable citation practices by maintaining article pages, issue archives, DOI links where applicable, and permanent article links wherever possible.
External Archiving and Preservation Services
Al-Qamar uses the PKP Preservation Network as part of its digital preservation and archiving arrangements. The journal may also use other recognized digital preservation services, institutional repositories, indexing platforms, digital archives, or metadata services to support long-term preservation and discoverability of published content.
Where Al-Qamar becomes formally registered with additional external preservation services such as LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, Portico, Internet Archive, institutional repositories, or other recognized archiving platforms, the journal may publicly display the relevant preservation information on its website.
The journal does not claim participation in any external preservation service unless such participation is active, verifiable, and relevant to the journal’s preservation arrangements.
Author Self-Archiving
Authors may archive the published version of their articles in institutional repositories, personal academic websites, research profiles, and scholarly platforms, provided that proper citation and a link to the official published version on the Al-Qamar website are included.
Self-archiving must not misrepresent the published record, alter the article content, or remove journal citation details.
Version of Record
The version published on the official Al-Qamar website is considered the version of record. Authors and readers should cite the official published version whenever possible.
Any later correction, retraction, withdrawal, or editorial notice will be handled according to Al-Qamar’s publication ethics and correction policies.
Preservation During Domain or Platform Migration
If the journal changes its domain, website structure, OJS installation, hosting service, or publishing platform, Al-Qamar aims to preserve all published content, issue archives, article metadata, article files, author information, and references.
During migration, the journal should ensure that old article links are redirected properly to the new article pages where possible. This helps protect indexing records, citation links, search engine visibility, DOI resolution, and reader access.
Long-Term Commitment
Al-Qamar is committed to maintaining the scholarly record of the journal for the long term. The journal treats digital preservation as an ongoing responsibility involving technical maintenance, metadata quality, article-level archiving, institutional backup, PKP Preservation Network support, and access continuity.
Through this policy, Al-Qamar seeks to support academic reliability, research transparency, indexing readiness, digital preservation, and international scholarly communication.
Archiving and Preservation Correspondence
For questions related to article archives, missing files, broken links, metadata correction, DOI links, website migration, preservation records, or PKP Preservation Network information, correspondence may be directed to:
Technical Support / Indexing and Metadata Office
Al-Qamar Islamic Research Institute
60-D Block, Marghazar Colony, Multan Road
Lahore, 54500, Pakistan
Email: support@aq.publications.aqiri.org
Alternative Email: indexing@publications.aqiri.org
