The Journal of Community Medicine and Health Sciences (JCMHS) promotes the open dissemination of scholarly research and encourages authors to deposit their published articles in institutional or subject repositories. This Repository Policy defines the rights, conditions, and best practices for archiving author versions in compliance with SHERPA/RoMEO, DOAJ, and COPE standards.

All JCMHS publications are archived in SHERPA/RoMEO–compliant repositories. Authors retain broad self-archiving rights under the journal’s Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

1. Purpose and Rationale

This policy ensures that research published in JCMHS remains accessible, discoverable, and reusable in perpetuity. It enables authors, institutions, and the public to preserve scholarly outputs in recognized repositories while maintaining citation accuracy and publisher integrity.

2. Repository Compliance

JCMHS adheres to the self-archiving standards recognized by SHERPA/RoMEO and OpenAIRE. Authors may deposit articles in:

Institutional repositories (e.g., university libraries)
Subject-specific repositories (e.g., PubMed Central, Zenodo, Europe PMC)
Funding-agency repositories (e.g., NIH MSA, Horizon Europe)
Personal or departmental websites

3. Types of Versions Permitted for Archiving

The following versions may be archived according to the stage of publication:

Version Type	Description	Where Archiving is Allowed
Pre-print	Author’s original manuscript before peer review	Anywhere (institutional, personal, or public repositories)
Post-print	Accepted manuscript after peer review and revisions	Institutional or subject repositories with full citation to JCMHS
Publisher PDF	Final formatted version published by JCMHS	Permitted under CC BY 4.0 after publication with full citation and DOI link

4. Embargo Policy

JCMHS does not impose any embargo period for archiving. Authors may deposit pre-prints, post-prints, or final published versions immediately upon acceptance or publication.

5. Licensing and Attribution Requirements

All published content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Authors archiving their work must include the following citation and license statement:

“This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.”

6. Repository Metadata Requirements

When archiving, authors should ensure that metadata include the following fields:

Article title and author names
Journal name, ISSN, volume, issue, and page numbers
DOI link to the publisher’s version
Date of publication and license statement
Funding acknowledgment (if applicable)

7. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors are encouraged to:

Deposit the final accepted version or publisher PDF immediately after publication.
Ensure accurate citation linking to the official JCMHS webpage.
Avoid altering the published PDF or removing publisher identifiers.
Provide repository administrators with the full citation and license notice.

8. Responsibilities of Institutions and Repositories

Institutions and repositories hosting JCMHS content must:

Preserve the metadata integrity of the original article.
Link directly to the publisher’s DOI.
Display the Creative Commons license visibly.
Ensure that deposited files are freely accessible and not modified.

9. Publisher’s Responsibilities

Peertechz Publications Pvt. Ltd., as the publisher of JCMHS, ensures that:

All articles are archived in SHERPA/RoMEO–listed repositories.
Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) remain permanent.
Metadata are deposited with Crossref and Portico for preservation.
Repository access aligns with open-access ethics and GDPR compliance.

10. Integration with SHERPA/RoMEO

JCMHS is indexed in SHERPA/RoMEO as a “Green Open Access Journal.” Authors have immediate archiving rights with no embargo. All policy details are publicly available on the SHERPA platform for verification by institutions and funders.

11. Open-Access and Funding Compliance

This policy satisfies open-access mandates by major funding agencies, including NIH, Wellcome Trust, UKRI, and European Research Council. Authors supported by such agencies may deposit the publisher version directly into mandated repositories without restriction.

12. Data and Supplementary Material Archiving

Authors are encouraged to archive datasets, code, and supplementary material in trusted repositories such as Zenodo, Figshare, Dryad, or Harvard Dataverse. Data should include DOIs and clear metadata to enhance transparency and reproducibility.

13. Third-Party Content and Copyrighted Material

When archiving material containing third-party copyrighted content (e.g., figures, images, or tables), authors must ensure permissions are obtained or materials fall under fair use. Such content must be properly cited in the archived version.

14. Preservation and Long-Term Accessibility

All JCMHS content is preserved through Portico, LOCKSS, and institutional archives to ensure permanent digital availability. Repository copies are considered complements, not replacements, for the official publisher version.

15. Machine Readability and Interoperability

JCMHS repository metadata conform to OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting). This enables harvesting by global indexing services such as Google Scholar, BASE, OpenAIRE, and Crossref Metadata Plus.

16. Withdrawal or Correction of Archived Versions

If an article is retracted or corrected, repositories will be notified through Crossref metadata updates. Repositories must update their records to display a retraction or correction notice linking to the publisher’s official statement.

17. Author’s Rights and Ownership

Authors retain copyright of their work and may share, reuse, or republish with proper citation to the original publication. The publisher retains the right to host and distribute the final version for indexing and archiving purposes.

18. Benefits of Repository Archiving

Increases global visibility and citation impact.
Ensures long-term availability of research outputs.
Supports institutional performance metrics and funding compliance.
Facilitates data sharing and knowledge transfer within community medicine and public health.

19. Compliance Verification

JCMHS periodically audits repository entries to ensure that deposited files maintain license and metadata integrity. Any non-compliant versions identified through indexing partners are flagged for revision or removal in collaboration with the respective repository administrators.

20. Institutional Repository Collaboration

The journal welcomes formal agreements with universities, libraries, and research organizations to enable automated deposit of JCMHS content through OAI-PMH or SWORD protocols. Interested institutions can contact the editorial office at [email protected].

21. Legal and Ethical Considerations

Repository deposits must not violate GDPR privacy laws, defamation regulations, or copyright restrictions. All data handling must follow the journal’s Privacy Statement and Copyright and Licensing Policy.

22. Policy Review and Updates

This Repository Policy is reviewed annually by the Editorial Board to ensure ongoing compliance with SHERPA/RoMEO, DOAJ, and COPE guidelines. Revisions are published on the journal website with the effective date clearly stated.

“Archiving is not a formality — it is a commitment to perpetual access and global knowledge sharing.”