Archiving and Digital Preservation Policy

1 Purpose and Commitment

The Branna Journal of Engineering and Technology is committed to ensuring the long-term availability, integrity, and discoverability of all published scholarly content. Digital preservation ensures that the scientific record remains accessible to researchers, practitioners, educators, and the public — now and in the future — regardless of changes in technology, organizational structures, or economic conditions affecting the journal or its publisher.

This policy defines BJET's approach to digital archiving, preservation partnerships, content formats, metadata standards, and authors' rights with respect to self-archiving.

2 Archiving Infrastructure and Partners

BJET employs a multi-layered archiving strategy to guard against single points of failure. The journal's published content is archived through the following mechanisms:

a) Primary Journal Website Archive All published articles are permanently hosted on the BJET official website with stable, persistent URLs. The journal maintains regular off-site backups of the entire publication database.

b) Third-Party Digital Preservation Networks BJET deposits published content with recognized digital preservation repositories. These may include:

• CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS): A community-governed dark archive that triggers access to content in the event the journal ceases publication or its website becomes inaccessible.
• LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe): A distributed archive system allowing participating libraries worldwide to hold and preserve copies of BJET content.
• PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN): For journals operating on the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform, the PKP PN provides automated deposits into the LOCKSS network.
• Internet Archive (Wayback Machine): BJET's public website is indexed by the Internet Archive to preserve successive states of the journal's online presence.

c) National and Institutional Repositories BJET encourages deposit of published articles into recognized national or institutional repositories, including repositories maintained by Ethiopian academic institutions, as part of building a resilient, geographically distributed archive.

3 File Formats and Standards

BJET publishes and archives content in formats chosen for long-term readability and interoperability:

Content Type

Primary Format

Archival Format

Journal articles

PDF/A (ISO 19005)

PDF/A-2 or PDF/A-3

Full-text HTML

HTML5

HTML5 with embedded metadata

Supplementary datasets

CSV, XLSX

CSV (plain text preferred)

Source files

LaTeX, DOCX

Preserved as submitted

Figures and images

PNG, TIFF

TIFF (lossless, 300 DPI minimum)

Video supplementary

MP4 (H.264)

MP4

PDF/A (Archival PDF) is the primary article format because it embeds all fonts, images, and color profiles within the file, ensuring the document renders consistently without dependence on external resources or software.

4 Persistent Identifiers

Every article published in BJET is assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) through a recognized DOI registration agency (e.g., Crossref). DOIs provide:

• A permanent, location-independent link to the published article.
• Machine-readable metadata for indexing and citation tracking.
• A stable reference even if the journal's URL structure changes.

In addition, BJET commits to:

• Registering article metadata with Crossref at the time of publication.
• Maintaining DOI resolution even in the event of journal migration or restructuring.
• Using ORCID iDs for author identification to ensure accurate attribution across systems and over time.

5 Metadata Standards

BJET adheres to internationally recognized metadata standards to ensure discoverability and interoperability with global indexing systems:

• Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI): For basic bibliographic description.
• JATS (Journal Article Tag Suite): For structured XML full-text archiving and database submission.
• OpenAIRE Guidelines: To support discoverability in open access repositories and compliance with funder mandates.
• OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting): BJET's platform exposes metadata via OAI-PMH to enable automated harvesting by aggregators and search engines.

6 Open Access and Author Self-Archiving (Green OA)

BJET supports author rights to self-archive their work in accordance with its Open Access policy. Authors may deposit versions of their manuscripts as follows:

Version

Definition

Self-Archiving Permission

Preprint

Version submitted before peer review

Permitted at any time, in any repository

Accepted Manuscript (AM)

Post-peer-review, pre-copyedited version

Permitted immediately upon acceptance

Version of Record (VoR)

Final published PDF

Permitted immediately (Open Access journals)

Authors are encouraged to deposit accepted manuscripts and the Version of Record in:

• Institutional repositories (their home university's repository)
• Subject repositories (e.g., arXiv, TechRxiv for engineering and technology)
• National repositories endorsed by their funding agencies

When self-archiving, authors must cite the published article's DOI as the definitive version of record.

7 Continuity of Access — Contingency Plans

BJET maintains contingency plans to ensure continued access to its published content in the following scenarios:

a) Journal Website Downtime: Published articles remain accessible through CLOCKSS, LOCKSS, and any partnered repository for the duration of any outage.

b) Cessation of Publication: In the event BJET permanently ceases publication, all archived content will be transferred to a trusted preservation partner (e.g., CLOCKSS trigger event) to ensure the articles remain permanently accessible to readers without a paywall.

c) Publisher Transition: If BJET transitions between publishers or platforms, a migration plan will ensure zero loss of DOI resolution, metadata integrity, and article availability. Authors and subscribers will be notified at least 90 days in advance of any major platform change.

d) Data Loss Events: BJET maintains geographically distributed backups of its full publication database, updated at minimum on a monthly basis.

8 Supplementary Materials and Research Data

BJET encourages — and for certain article types may require — the deposit of research data, code, and supplementary materials in recognized data repositories to ensure reproducibility:

• Zenodo (CERN-operated, free, accepts all file types)
• Figshare (multi-format research data and figures)
• GitHub / Zenodo integration (for software and code)
• IEEE DataPort (engineering datasets)

Deposited datasets must be assigned their own DOI (provided by the data repository) and linked to the published article at BJET. Authors are responsible for ensuring their datasets meet FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

9 Retention Period

BJET commits to retaining and ensuring access to all published content indefinitely. There is no scheduled date after which content will be removed from BJET's archive or from partner preservation systems. Retracted articles are not deleted but are clearly and permanently marked as retracted, with a public retraction notice, in accordance with best practices for maintaining an accurate and transparent scholarly record.

10 Review and Updates

This Archiving and Digital Preservation Policy will be reviewed annually by the BJET Editorial Board. Updates will be made as needed to reflect changes in technology standards, preservation practices, and international guidelines. Any substantive changes will be announced on the journal website with the effective date clearly stated.