Clinical Biomedical Communications (CBC) is committed to the principles of open research and the permanent preservation of scientific knowledge. The journal’s policies ensure that authors retain ownership of their intellectual property while guaranteeing that their findings remain accessible to the global community in perpetuity.

To safeguard the integrity of the scholarly record against technical failures or platform migrations, CBC employs a robust, multi-layered archiving strategy.

All content is stored using high-availability, cloud-based digital archiving on enterprise-grade platforms such as AWS. This ensures that articles are protected by rigorous disaster recovery protocols and 24/7 accessibility.

The journal’s archiving systems maintain strict version control, ensuring that the Version of Record is preserved alongside any formal corrections or retractions.

By utilizing persistent identifiers, including Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), and exploring partnerships with external preservation services such as CLOCKSS or Portico, CBC ensures that citations remain valid and the research remains discoverable for decades to come.

After the proofs are finalized, the article moves into the final production phase. A permanent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is assigned, ensuring that the work is instantly citable.

The final, paginated Version of Record is published on the CBC website. As a gold open-access journal, CBC provides immediate, unrestricted access to the final Version of Record.

Authors and the public can download the final PDF directly from the journal’s platform.

Under the CC BY 4.0 license, authors are encouraged to share the final link or the PDF version on institutional repositories, personal websites, and professional social media networks.

Authors are encouraged to use the stable DOI link when sharing their work to ensure that all citations and altmetric mentions, including social media shares and news mentions, are accurately tracked and attributed to their article.

Maintaining the historical record is a core principle of scientific transparency. Retracted articles are not deleted from the journal’s website or archives. Instead, they remain accessible but are prominently marked with a “RETRACTED” watermark on every page of the PDF and HTML versions.

By keeping retracted papers visible but clearly labeled, CBC ensures that:

• Future researchers do not inadvertently rely on compromised data or flawed conclusions.

• The scientific community can understand the reasons for the failure, which helps in preventing similar issues in the future.

• Citations remain traceable, ensuring that the impact of the retraction is understood by anyone who has previously cited the work.

The Editor-in-Chief of CBC, in collaboration with the publisher’s research integrity team, is responsible for actively protecting the integrity of the published scientific record.

Upon receiving credible reports or suspicions of misconduct, whether in research conduct, publication practices, peer review, or editorial processes, the editor must promptly investigate by engaging the author(s) for clarification, evaluating all claims fairly, and, when warranted, consulting relevant institutions, funding agencies, or ethics bodies.

If compelling evidence of serious misconduct emerges, the editor coordinates with the publisher to issue appropriate remedial actions without delay, such as a correction, an expression of concern, a retraction, or another notice that accurately updates the literature while preserving transparency and trust in the scholarly record.