Archiving and Preservation Policy
Purpose
Al-Nasr 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-Nasr preserves its published articles, book reviews, issue records, metadata, editorial information, and digital files for future access.
Al-Nasr uses institutional preservation practices and the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) to support the long-term preservation of published issues, articles, book reviews, metadata, and article files.
Purpose of Archiving and Preservation
The purpose of Al-Nasr’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-Nasr considers every published article and book review part of the permanent scholarly record. Once an article or book review is formally published, the journal seeks to preserve its file, metadata, issue information, author details, abstract where applicable, keywords where applicable, references where applicable, DOI or article identifier where applicable, and publication history.
Digital Preservation of Published Content
Al-Nasr preserves published content in digital form through its online journal platform, institutional publishing records, and external preservation support.
The preserved content may include:
- Article or book review title
- Author names
- Author affiliations
- Abstract where applicable
- Keywords where applicable
- References where applicable
- Article or book review PDF
- Issue details
- Publication date
- DOI or permanent article link where applicable
- License information
- Editorial and publication metadata
The journal aims to ensure that published content remains accessible through stable article pages, issue archives, and preserved digital records.
Online Archive
Al-Nasr maintains an online archive of its published issues, articles, and book reviews. 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, article discovery, and long-term access to published research.
Institutional Preservation
Al-Nasr is published by Al-Qamar Islamic Research Institute, Lahore, Pakistan. The publisher maintains institutional records of published content, journal issues, article files, book review files, metadata, and essential publication data.
Institutional preservation supports continuity of access in case of website redesign, platform upgrade, domain migration, server change, hosting issue, or technical maintenance.
PKP Preservation Network
Al-Nasr uses the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) as an external digital preservation service for the long-term preservation of published journal content.
The PKP Preservation Network provides preservation support for journals using Open Journal Systems and helps protect the scholarly record against data loss, technical failure, website disruption, platform changes, or other risks to digital access.
Through PKP PN, Al-Nasr supports the preservation of published issues, articles, book reviews, metadata, and related publication records. This external preservation arrangement strengthens the journal’s commitment to long-term access, digital preservation, research integrity, and responsible scholarly publishing.
Al-Nasr aims to maintain accurate preservation information on its website. If the journal’s preservation arrangements change, the relevant information shall be updated accordingly.
Website and Platform Preservation
Al-Nasr uses an online journal publishing system for submission, editorial processing, peer review, publication, 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, domain change, or hosting change, the journal aims to preserve article URLs, metadata, issue archives, article files, book review 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 and to protect citation links, search-engine visibility, indexing records, DOI resolution, and reader access.
Backup Policy
Al-Nasr 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, book review PDFs, metadata, and issue records.
Backups may include:
- Server-level backups
- OJS platform and database backups
- Local institutional copies
- Secure copies of published article and book review files
- Metadata and issue record backups
- Additional preservation records where needed
These backups support recovery in case of technical failure, accidental deletion, cyber incident, hosting issue, migration error, or platform disruption.
Metadata Preservation
Al-Nasr recognizes that metadata is essential for indexing, discoverability, citation tracking, archiving, and long-term preservation. The journal therefore seeks to preserve article-level and book-review-level metadata, including:
- Author names
- Article or book review titles
- Abstracts where applicable
- Keywords where applicable
- References where applicable
- Issue details
- Publication dates
- Language information
- Page range or article number
- DOI or permanent identifiers where applicable
- License information
- Publisher information
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 or book review is preserved as the version of record. Al-Nasr seeks to maintain the integrity of the published 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-Nasr aims to keep published content accessible to readers without unnecessary interruption. In case of temporary website maintenance, technical disruption, hosting change, domain migration, or platform upgrade, 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-Nasr uses the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) as an external digital preservation service for preserving published journal content.
In addition to PKP PN, Al-Nasr may also use institutional backups, website archives, metadata services, indexing platforms, repositories, library records, or other recognized preservation services where appropriate.
The journal does not claim participation in any external preservation service unless such participation is active and verifiable. Any preservation statement displayed on the journal website should remain accurate, current, and consistent with the journal’s actual preservation arrangements.
Author Self-Archiving
Authors may archive the published version of their articles and book reviews 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-Nasr website are included.
Self-archiving must not misrepresent the published record, alter the article content, remove journal citation details, or create confusion about the official version of record.
Version of Record
The version published on the official Al-Nasr website is considered the version of record. Authors and readers should cite the official published version whenever possible.
The version of record includes the final article or book review file, metadata, issue details, page range or article number, DOI or article URL where applicable, license information, and publication history.
Any later correction, retraction, withdrawal, expression of concern, or editorial notice will be handled according to Al-Nasr’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-Nasr aims to preserve all published content, issue archives, article metadata, book review metadata, article files, book review files, author information, references, DOI records where applicable, and indexing-related information.
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, article discovery, and reader access.
The journal also aims to avoid duplicate article records, broken links, missing PDFs, incomplete metadata, and inconsistent issue archives during migration or platform restructuring.
Long-Term Commitment
Al-Nasr 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, external preservation through PKP PN, and access continuity.
Through this policy, Al-Nasr seeks to support academic reliability, research transparency, indexing readiness, digital preservation, and international scholarly communication.
