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From a technical perspective, the PKP Private LOCKSS Network (PLN) has four components: OJS journals that are participating in the network, a staging server that harvests content from the journals and prepares it for preservation, LOCKSS-O-Matic, and the Private LOCKSS Network itself. The movement of journal content into the PLN is illustrated below.
Note that there are two separate SWORD transactions (the first is between a client in OJS and a server on the staging server, and the second between a client on the staging server and a server in LOCKSS-O-Matic), and two separate harvesting operations (first, the staging server harvests deposits from OJS, and then the Private LOCKSS Network harvests the same deposits from the staging server).
Detailed information is available on how OJS communicates with the staging server, and on the processes that prepare content for long-term preservation in the LOCKSS network. LOCKSS-O-Matic is independent of the PKP PLN but plays a central role in its operation by automating the addition of the OJS content into the LOCKSS network.
Starting with version 2.4.5 (released September 2014), OJS will include a plugin that automatically packages up individual journal issues for inclusion in the PLN and initiates a request to have them included. Shortly after the request, the issue content is added to the Private LOCKSS Network for preservation. All of the processes involved are automated.
Content generated by the OJS journal contains either an issue or, for journals that do not publish conventional issues, a group of articles (typically 20). This content is packaged as a "deposit" that is registered with the staging server by the new OJS plugin. In addition to the article content, which is in the is in the standard OJS Export/Import XML format, each deposit includes a file containing the most recent information about the journal itself, such as journal manager email address, a description of the journal, its ISSN, etc.
The virus checking process on the staging server adds a report documenting the results of checking each file (PDF, JPEG, HTML, XML, etc.) in the deposit. The deposit is then repackaged as a Bag, which is later harvested by the LOCKSS network for long-term preservation. The Bag adds it own files, such as checksum manifests and a simple file describing the content of the Bag, but these are kept completely separate from the article content, copyright metadata, and journal metadata files.
When the original journal is deemed no longer available for public access, its preserved content will be reloaded into one or more OJS journal instances:
With some very specific exceptions, the journal content will be made available to end users under the same license terms (for the vast majority of journals, under an Open Access license) that existed while the journal was still in production.