Archiving Policy

Hikmat International Journal of Arts and Social Sciences (HIJASS), published by the Al-Irfan Research Center (SMC-Private) Limited Lahore, Pakistan, supports long-term preservation and accessibility of scholarly content. As part of its open-access policy, HIJASS allows self-archiving of accepted and published articles.

Author Rights and Self-Archiving

  • Authors retain full copyright of their scholarly work.

  • Authors are permitted to archive the pre-print, post-print, and final publisher’s version (PDF) in institutional repositories, personal websites, subject repositories, or libraries—without requiring prior permission from the journal or publisher.

  • Upon publication, authors must properly cite the journal and credit HIJASS as the original publisher.

Example citation:
This article has been accepted for publication in HIJASS (Hikmat International Journal of Arts and Social Sciences), published by Al-Irfan Research Center (SMC-Private) Limited Lahore, Pakistan.

Authors may also deposit the URL link of the published version along with the PDF in any repository, provided full citation details are included.

Digital Archiving & Preservation

To ensure long-term access to its content, HIJASS archives its published material through the following mechanisms:

  • LOCKSS / PKP PN (Preservation Network): HIJASS content is regularly archived in the PKP Preservation Network, ensuring secure and distributed long-term preservation.

  • OJS Platform Backup: The Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform automatically stores backups and archives of published material.

  • Metadata Harvesting: HIJASS ensures that all its metadata is compatible with major repository services, allowing regular harvesting by digital crawlers for long-term record-keeping.

HIJASS is committed to ensuring that all published articles remain accessible permanently, even in the case of technical issues, system migration, or discontinuation of the journal.