Archiving and Preservation

For every published work the Journal preserves the version of record as typeset PDF, the structured content of the work, its metadata and contributor list, its references, any correction or retraction notices, and the licence under which it was released.

Supplementary and raw data are preserved where the Author deposited them with the Journal, under the terms of the Data Availability Policy. Where data are held elsewhere, the Journal preserves the identifier and the statement, not the dataset.

The Journal does not rely exclusively on its own website as the means of preserving the published record. Where appropriate and available, published content and its associated metadata may be deposited with recognised repositories and DOI-linked preservation services that operate independently of the Journal's primary publishing platform, providing resilience against changes to its website, hosting or publishing systems.

The version of record is a typeset PDF produced by the Journal, not a print-out of a web page. It is self-describing: masthead, identifiers, licence, contributor list and citation of record are carried on the document itself, so a copy separated from this website remains complete and attributable.

The version of record is the article formally published by the Journal following completion of its editorial and publication processes. It is the Journal's definitive published version for citation and bibliographic purposes. Preserving additional copies or versions elsewhere does not create additional versions of record; where multiple copies exist, the Journal maintains enough bibliographic information and persistent linking for their relationship and status to be understood.

Where an article was previously made available as a preprint through an appropriate repository or service, the preprint remains distinct from the subsequently published version of record. Where practicable, the Journal preserves a link between the two so readers can trace the publication history, but the existence of a preprint never alters the identity of the version of record or its DOI.

The Journal may use associated or publishing infrastructure provided by the publisher (InnoQlar Academic Press), and digital publication service provider (PROTOCELL IO), as part of its publishing and preservation arrangements. Where content is published or preserved through such infrastructure, the relevant records maintain a clear bibliographic relationship to the JQBio publication, and persistent identifiers are retained so provenance stays clear. Permissions for open-access works, including those released under CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, remain governed by the licence attached to the work and by the Journal's Open-Access and Licencing Terms of Use, not by this policy.

Each version of record carries a DOI, which constitutes its principal persistent identifier and should be used when citing or referring to the work. The DOI remains associated with the publication independently of changes to the Journal's website, article URL or other technical infrastructure. Article addresses are otherwise canonical and permanent; where an address must change, the previous address is redirected rather than retired.

The Journal maintains the bibliographic metadata associated with its DOI records and makes reasonable efforts to ensure DOI resolution continues to identify the relevant publication record, or an appropriate successor location.

Internal control references used by the editorial office are never used to cite or identify a work publicly. Readers cite by DOI, or by canonical URL where no DOI has yet been assigned.

Preservation is not limited to retaining a visual copy of an article. Where supported by the Journal's publishing and repository infrastructure, content and its associated metadata may also be preserved in structured, machine-readable form, thereby maintaining the meaning and identity of essential elements such as title, authorship, abstract, references, publication dates, DOI, licensing information and relationships between versions as technical environments change.

Alongside this, the Journal preserves the bibliographic metadata necessary to identify and cite each work, which may include author information, article title, publication date, abstract, journal information, DOI, references, licence information and relationships between publication versions. Together, this supports continued discoverability, interoperability, indexing, accessibility and citation as publishing technologies evolve.

If the Journal changes its website, domain, hosting provider, publishing platform, repository arrangements or other technical systems, it will make reasonable efforts to preserve existing publication identifiers, metadata and archival access.

Should the Journal cease to publish, the published corpus and its metadata will be transferred to a recognised preservation service or successor publisher, and existing identifiers will be redirected to the new location so continuity of the permanent scholarly record is not unnecessarily broken. Open-access licences already granted are irrevocable and survive any such transfer.

As a result of this preservation strategy, a published work may be available through more than one location — the Journal's website, DOI-linked repositories, recognised scholarly repositories, preprint services or associated publishing infrastructure. The existence of multiple preserved copies does not make any of them a separate version of record: the version of record remains the definitive published version for citation and bibliographic purposes, while the independent archival copies simply provide additional resilience and continuity of access.

Readers and institutions may retain local copies of open-access works for preservation, teaching and reference, subject to the licence stated on the work. Attribution must carry the citation of record and the copyright line printed on the document.

Corrections, retractions, withdrawals, expressions of concern and other changes to a work's status are governed by the Journal's Corrections, Retractions and Publication Record Policy, not by this one. Where such a change affects a publication held within the Journal's archival infrastructure, the relevant archival or DOI records may be updated or linked to the applicable notice where reasonably practicable.

Duplicate publication, overlapping publication and republication are governed by the Journal's Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication Policy. This policy does not establish substantive rules on those matters — it addresses only the preservation, identification, continuity and long-term accessibility of the scholarly record.

This policy should be read alongside, in particular, the Open-Access and Licencing Terms of Use (copyright, licences and reuse), the Data Availability Policy (availability and preservation of research data), the Plagiarism and Duplicate Publication Policy, and the Corrections, Retractions and Publication Record Policy. Where another Journal policy expressly governs a matter, that policy applies to the substantive requirements for it.