Purpose and Scope
This policy establishes principles for durable preservation and continuity of Treata-published scholarly content. Preservation should reduce dependence on a single website, server, vendor, or organizational circumstance and should support continued identification of the scholarly record over time.
The exact preservation infrastructure may differ by journal and should be described only when the relevant service or arrangement is actually in place.
Preservation Principle
Publication creates an ongoing stewardship responsibility. Published articles, corrections, retractions, supplementary files, metadata, and other components of the record should be preserved through appropriate technical and organizational arrangements.
A live journal website is an access platform but should not be treated as the sole preservation strategy.
Persistent Identifiers and URLs
Where persistent identifiers such as DOIs are assigned, their metadata and destination links should be maintained accurately. Website redesign, domain migration, or platform change should preserve stable article discovery through redirects and metadata updates where feasible.
Persistent identifiers should not be invented or displayed before they have actually been registered or assigned.
Metadata Preservation
Bibliographic metadata, authorship, publication dates, licensing, correction status, and other material record information should be maintained consistently across journal pages, article files, DOI metadata, indexing feeds, and preservation systems where supported.
Corrections and retractions should propagate to metadata systems to the extent technically possible.
Preservation Services
Journals may participate in recognized preservation networks, repositories, institutional archives, or other durable systems. Participation should be stated publicly only after it has been verified and should identify the actual arrangement rather than using preservation terminology as a marketing claim.
Treata may use more than one preservation route where appropriate to reduce single-point dependency.
Platform Migration and Technical Change
Migration to a new publishing platform should preserve article identity, files, metadata, issue structure, notices, and links as far as reasonably possible. Redirect plans should minimize broken inbound links and loss of search-engine or scholarly discovery.
Migration testing should include corrections, supplementary files, article-level licenses, and historical content rather than only current issue pages.
Journal Transfer
When a journal transfers between publishers or platforms, the parties should seek continuity of access, metadata, identifiers, archive ownership or custody, and reader information. The public record should make the new authoritative location reasonably clear.
Transfer should not silently rewrite historical publisher information attached to earlier volumes.
Temporary Interruption
Operational disruption, cybersecurity incidents, infrastructure failure, or organizational change may temporarily affect access. Recovery plans should prioritize restoration of the publication record and accurate communication rather than republishing from incomplete or unverified copies.
Backups are important for recovery but are not identical to independent long-term preservation.
Journal Closure or Discontinuation
If a journal ceases publication, existing articles should remain accessible and preserved where feasible. Closure should not imply deletion of the scholarly record.
The journal should communicate discontinuation clearly and maintain or redirect essential archive and metadata functions through an appropriate continuity arrangement.
Corrections, Retractions and Historical Integrity
Preservation systems should retain the relationship between articles and later notices. A retracted article ordinarily remains part of the record with clear labeling rather than disappearing from archives.
Historical versions and notices should remain interpretable after platform migration or journal closure.
Journal Implementation and Version Control
The preservation principle is publisher mandatory; the actual infrastructure is journal and platform specific. Each journal should identify verified preservation arrangements, DOI infrastructure, backup and continuity responsibilities where applicable.
Material changes should be versioned. Public claims about preservation, DOI registration, indexing, or repository participation must be verified before publication.
Version Control
Version 1.0. This page is the canonical publisher-level text for the current version. Material revisions should be versioned and dated, while superseded versions remain identifiable so historical applicability can be determined.