Digital Archiving and Preservation Policy
The Journal of Research in Agriculture and Food Sciences (JRAFS) is committed to ensuring the long-term preservation, integrity, and accessibility of its published scholarly content. The journal recognizes that published articles constitute a permanent scholarly record and therefore maintains appropriate measures to protect published content against accidental loss, technical failure, website disruption, or other circumstances that could affect its future availability.
JRAFS employs a multi-layered digital preservation strategy, combining independent third-party archiving through Portico with secure publisher backups and preservation of the journal's content and metadata within its publishing infrastructure.
1. Long-Term Digital Preservation
JRAFS participates in Portico, a recognized digital preservation service for scholarly content. Portico preserves the journal's published content and provides a mechanism for maintaining access to the scholarly record in the event that the journal's website or publishing platform becomes unavailable.
Through this preservation arrangement, JRAFS seeks to ensure that its published articles remain accessible and recoverable over the long term, including in the event of significant disruption to the journal's publishing operations.
Portico preservation complements, but does not replace, the journal's own secure backup and content-management procedures.
2. Publisher and Publishing Platform
JRAFS uses eJManager as part of its manuscript submission and journal publishing infrastructure. Published articles and associated publication information are maintained within the journal's publishing environment.
eJManager supports the management and accessibility of the journal's published content; however, Portico serves as the journal's independent digital preservation service.
The journal's published content is also backed up on secure publisher-controlled systems to provide additional protection against data loss and technical failure.
3. Preserved Content
Digital preservation arrangements are intended to protect the journal's published scholarly record, including, where applicable:
full-text published articles;
article metadata;
bibliographic information;
DOI information;
publication dates;
volume and issue information;
figures and tables;
supplementary materials where supported; and
other publication-related information necessary to maintain the scholarly record.
4. Preservation of the Version of Record
The published Version of Record is the authoritative version of each JRAFS article.
The journal will make reasonable efforts to preserve the Version of Record and its associated metadata without unauthorized alteration.
When a correction, retraction, Expression of Concern, or other post-publication notice is issued, the original publication record will normally be preserved and clearly linked to the relevant notice in accordance with the journal's Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern Policy.
JRAFS does not ordinarily delete or overwrite the scholarly record merely because an article has subsequently been corrected or retracted.
5. Publisher Continuity
Eldaghayes Publisher is committed to maintaining the continuity and accessibility of the JRAFS scholarly record.
In the event of a major disruption affecting the journal's website, publishing platform, or editorial operations, the publisher will take reasonable measures to restore access to published content and preserve article metadata, DOI information, and publication history.
The existence of an independent Portico preservation arrangement provides an additional safeguard for the long-term continuity of the journal's scholarly record.
6. Author Self-Archiving
Authors retain the right to share and archive their published work in accordance with the journal's Copyright and Licensing Policy.
JRAFS permits authors to deposit the published Version of Record in:
institutional repositories;
subject or disciplinary repositories;
university repositories;
personal academic websites; and
other legitimate scholarly repositories or academic platforms.
Authors should provide appropriate bibliographic attribution to JRAFS and include the article's DOI or another persistent link to the published article whenever possible.
7. Author-Archived Versions
Authors may archive the final published version of their article, including the publisher's formatting, final content, and DOI information.
Authors are encouraged to link any archived copy to the official JRAFS Version of Record.
Any archived version should clearly identify JRAFS as the original publisher and should not be presented as a separate or independently published work.
8. Preprint Policy
JRAFS permits authors to have previously posted their manuscripts as preprints, provided that the preprint does not represent the final published Version of Record and that all relevant journal policies are satisfied.
Authors should disclose the existence of a preprint during submission and provide its DOI or persistent identifier, where available.
Following publication in JRAFS, authors are encouraged to update the preprint record with a link to the final published article.
The existence of a preprint does not replace the journal's peer-review and editorial assessment processes.
JRAFS reserves the right to assess individual cases where prior public dissemination raises legitimate concerns relating to confidentiality, ethics, copyright, patient or participant privacy, intellectual property, or other applicable requirements.
9. Persistent Identifiers and Metadata
JRAFS maintains persistent bibliographic information for published articles, including, where applicable:
Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs);
article titles;
author names and affiliations;
abstracts;
publication dates;
volume and issue information;
citation information; and
other relevant publication metadata.
The journal makes reasonable efforts to maintain the accuracy and persistence of this information and to communicate significant changes to relevant indexing, abstracting, and preservation services where technically possible.
10. Digital Backup and Redundancy
In addition to independent preservation through Portico, JRAFS maintains secure backups of published content and relevant publication data.
Where technically feasible, backups are maintained separately from the primary publishing environment to reduce the risk of permanent data loss caused by:
server or hardware failure;
software or database failure;
accidental deletion;
cybersecurity incidents;
website disruption; or
other unforeseen technical events.
11. Ongoing Preservation Review
JRAFS periodically reviews its digital preservation arrangements to ensure that they remain appropriate for the long-term protection of the journal's scholarly record.
The journal may adopt additional preservation measures or services when necessary to strengthen the security, redundancy, and long-term accessibility of its published content.
Commitment to Long-Term Access
JRAFS considers digital preservation an essential responsibility of scholarly publishing. Through its Portico preservation arrangement, secure publisher backups, and continued maintenance of its publishing infrastructure, the journal is committed to ensuring that its published research remains accessible, identifiable, authentic, and preservable for future generations of researchers, educators, and practitioners.
