Digital Preservation and Archiving Policy

Journal of Accounting and Management (JAM)  |  e-ISSN 3048-345X

1. Purpose and Scope

This policy governs the long-term preservation, backup, restoration, migration, and continuity of JAM’s published scholarly record and the technical systems needed to maintain it. It applies to:

• article landing pages, abstracts, full-text HTML, PDF and other published galley formats;
• issues, tables of contents, cover files, supplementary materials, and public notices;
• article, author, funding, licensing, reference, citation, DOI, and relationship metadata;
• corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, removals, and version history;
• OJS database, uploaded files, configuration, themes, plugins, and other components required for recovery; and
• public journal policies and institutional records documenting preservation actions.

Boundary: preservation of the journal’s publication record is distinct from preservation or sharing of authors’ underlying research datasets. Research data, repository selection, access conditions, and data-availability statements are governed by JAM’s Research Data and Data Availability Policy.

2. Preservation Objectives

3. Layered Preservation Strategy

JAM follows a layered approach aligned with the 3-2-1 principle: at least three copies, using at least two storage types, with at least one copy held off-site and administratively separated from the production server.

4. Backup Schedule and Retention

The publisher implements the following minimum operational schedule. A more frequent or longer schedule may be used when risk, volume, legal requirements, or institutional policy requires it.

Retention is suspended when a legal hold, security investigation, ethics case, or recovery incident requires relevant copies and logs to be preserved longer. Backup deletion follows documented authorization and secure disposal practices.

5. Integrity Checks and Restoration Testing

• Backup jobs generate success or failure logs, and failures are escalated and corrected promptly.
• Cryptographic checksums or equivalent integrity controls are recorded for preservation copies and rechecked after transfer or restoration.
• A representative restoration test is performed at least quarterly in an isolated environment and includes database, article files, metadata, issue structure, links, and permissions.
• A full recovery exercise is performed at least annually and before or after a major OJS, server, storage, or domain migration.
• Test results, defects, corrective actions, responsible personnel, and completion dates are documented and retained for audit.
• PKP PN and Crossref status are reviewed at least quarterly; failed deposits, stale URLs, and metadata discrepancies are corrected.

6. File Formats and Migration

JAM retains the published source or master object and, where practical, an open or widely supported preservation derivative. Preferred formats include PDF or PDF/A for fixed-layout articles, UTF-8 text and XML/JATS for structured content and metadata, CSV or other non-proprietary tabular formats, and TIFF, PNG, or high-quality JPEG for images as appropriate.

Format risk is reviewed during platform and preservation audits. When a format becomes unsupported or threatens access, JAM may migrate it while retaining the original, documenting the tool and date, verifying completeness and visual/semantic equivalence, generating new checksums, and recording the relationship between versions. Migration does not authorize alteration of scholarly meaning.

7. Persistent Identifiers and Metadata Stewardship

• Each registered DOI is maintained as a persistent identifier and resolves to a live, authoritative article or notice landing page.
• When a URL or platform changes, JAM updates the DOI destination and does not mint a replacement DOI merely because the location changed.
• Metadata are kept complete and current, including title, authors, affiliations, ORCID identifiers, abstract, dates, volume, issue, license, funding, references, and related-item links where applicable.
• Corrections, Expressions of Concern, retractions, and other updates are linked to the original article through visible notices and Crossref relationship metadata.
• ISSN, journal title, publisher identity, ownership, frequency, and contact information remain consistent across OJS, Crossref, preservation services, and indexing systems.

8. Post-Publication Updates and Version History

JAM preserves the Version of Record and the history of authorized post-publication changes. Material changes are never made silently. A correction, Expression of Concern, retraction, or removal notice remains linked in both directions with the affected article and is included in preservation and metadata workflows.

Earlier versions are retained and remain accessible or obtainable from the journal unless lawful privacy, safety, copyright, or security grounds require restricted access. If content must be removed, the DOI and landing page normally remain with a transparent tombstone notice and bibliographic metadata.

9. Security and Access to Preservation Copies

• Preservation and backup credentials are distinct from routine editorial accounts, restricted by role, and protected by strong authentication.
• Off-site copies are encrypted in transit and at rest when supported, and access is logged and reviewed.
• Backup storage is not publicly writable and is separated from the production server to reduce ransomware and deletion risk.
• Secrets, credentials, temporary files, and unnecessary personal data are not included in publicly accessible preservation packages.
• Confidential submissions, peer-review records, and personal data remain subject to access controls, privacy rules, and justified retention schedules even when operationally backed up.

10. Disaster Recovery and Service Continuity

The disaster-recovery procedure may be activated after server failure, corruption, accidental deletion, ransomware, unauthorized modification, network or hosting outage, natural disaster, domain loss, or another incident that threatens access or integrity.

1. Contain: isolate affected systems, preserve logs and evidence, restrict compromised credentials, and prevent contaminated backups from overwriting clean copies.
2. Assess: identify affected content, time range, cause, last known clean copy, privacy or legal implications, and required notifications.
3. Restore: rebuild a supported environment from a verified clean backup and restore the synchronized database, files, configuration, and public content.
4. Validate: check authentication, permissions, checksums, article files, metadata, issue structure, DOI resolution, notices, links, and search/indexing behavior before reopening.
5. Communicate: provide proportionate status information to users and notify affected persons, institutions, or authorities when required.
6. Improve: document root cause, recovery time, data-loss interval, actions taken, and preventive improvements.

The operational target is a recovery point no older than 24 hours and restoration of essential public journal access within 72 hours, subject to incident severity, infrastructure availability, safety, and lawful investigation requirements.

11. Cessation, Transfer, or Publisher Change

If JAM ceases publication, changes publisher, migrates platform, or can no longer maintain the journal, Universitas Dehasen Bengkulu will make reasonable arrangements to keep published content accessible through a successor publisher, institutional repository or library, preservation network, or other trusted archive.

The transfer plan includes content files, metadata, issue structure, update notices, DOI stewardship, licenses, preservation status, and necessary documentation. DOI ownership or destinations and Crossref metadata will be updated without altering the publication record. Confidential editorial records will be transferred only when lawful, necessary, secure, and consistent with privacy and retention obligations.

12. Roles, Evidence, and Review

JAM retains backup logs, storage inventories, checksum and restore-test reports, PKP PN status, DOI-resolution checks, migration records, incident reports, corrective actions, and responsible-person assignments. This policy and its implementation are reviewed at least annually and after every material incident or platform migration.

13. Relationship with Other JAM Policies