Indexing, Abstracting and Preservation of Digital Content

Identification

The journal has applied for an electronic ISSN to the National Science Library, CSIR-NIScPR, New Delhi, which is the ISSN National Centre for India. The number will be displayed in the header of this website, on every article page and in the citation block of every article as soon as it is allotted.

The journal states its status plainly here because the alternative is what a great many new journals do, which is to imply accreditation they do not hold. This journal will claim an index only after that index has accepted it, and will name the date of acceptance when it does.

Indexing and abstracting

Indexing services require a publication record before they will consider an application. The journal’s plan, in the order the services themselves require, is:

1. Google Scholar. The site is built so that every article page exposes its title, authors, abstract, publication date and citation metadata in a form Scholar can read. Inclusion normally follows within a few months of the first published issue.
2. Crossref. Membership will be taken after the first issue, so that every article receives a DOI, a permanent identifier that survives any change of web address. Crossref membership carries an annual fee, which the journal will meet from its own resources and never from author charges.
3. Directory of Open Access Journals. DOAJ requires an ISSN, a published archive, transparent policies and a record of peer review. The journal’s policies were written to DOAJ’s criteria from the start, and the application will be filed once the journal has published continuously for one year.
4. ROAD, the Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources. Application follows the allotment of the ISSN.
5. Subject databases and national listings. Applications will be made where the journal genuinely meets the criteria, and each success will be recorded on this page with its date.

The journal does not purchase indexing, does not display purchased impact metrics, and does not use the phrase “impact factor” for any number it has not been awarded by a body entitled to award one. Services that offer an index listing or an impact factor in exchange for a fee are declined as a matter of policy.

Preservation of digital content

An electronic journal that disappears has published nothing. The journal’s preservation arrangements are:

• Permanent addresses. Every article keeps the web address at which it was first published. Articles are never removed, and retracted articles remain in place with a retraction notice attached.
• Version control. The entire journal, including every article and every editorial page, is stored in a version controlled repository. Each change is recorded with its date, so that the state of the journal at any past moment can be reconstructed.
• Distributed copies. The complete site is held in at least three independent locations: the version control repository, the publishing platform, and an offline copy held by the editorial office and refreshed after each issue.
• Web archiving. Each issue is submitted to the Internet Archive on publication, so that a copy exists outside the journal’s own control.
• Author copies. Authors are encouraged, under the self archiving policy, to deposit the published version in an institutional or subject repository. Repository copies are the most durable preservation any article has.
• Legal deposit. Copies are supplied to national deposit libraries as required for Indian publications.
• Succession. Should the journal cease publication, the archive will be transferred to an institutional repository willing to host it permanently, and a notice recording the transfer will be published here before the transfer takes place.

Metadata

Each article page carries structured metadata covering the title, the authors, the abstract, the keywords, the article type, the research section, the issue, the page range, the dates of receipt, acceptance and publication, the licence, and the DOI once assigned. Metadata is provided in a form that harvesters and reference managers can read without special arrangement.

Reporting a problem

If you find an article that is unreachable, a link that does not resolve, or metadata that is wrong, write to the editorial office. Broken references to published scholarship are treated as urgent and are fixed within five working days.