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ISSN, ISSN-L, ISSN-H, Print and Online ISSN: What All Those Codes Actually Mean?

✇OPEN JOURNAL SYSTEM SERVICES
OJS-Services

If you have ever looked up your journal on the ISSN Portal, you may have been surprised to find not one number but several — something like this:

ISSN: 1808-057X
ISSN-L: 1519-7077
ISSN-H: 9120-4690

Add in the “Print ISSN,” “Online ISSN,” and “eISSN” labels you see scattered across databases, indexing services, and your own OJS settings, and a perfectly reasonable question follows: which one is my journal’s “real” ISSN, and what is the difference between all of them?

The short answer is that these are not competing numbers. They are different types of ISSN that describe the same publication from different angles. Once you know what each letter stands for, the picture becomes simple. Here is the full breakdown for journal editors and publishers.

First, what an ISSN actually is

An ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) is an eight-digit code that identifies a continuing resource — a journal, magazine, newspaper, or any publication issued over time. It is written as two groups of four characters separated by a hyphen, and the last character can be an X (used when a check-digit calculation lands on the value 10).

Two things are worth remembering:

  1. An ISSN carries no meaning of its own. It does not encode the country, subject, publisher, or quality of a journal. It is purely an identifier.
  2. Each medium gets its own ISSN. This is the key to understanding everything below. A journal that exists in print and online is, from the ISSN system’s point of view, two versions of the same work — and each version is assigned a separate number.

That second point is exactly why a single journal ends up with multiple ISSNs.

Print ISSN (p-ISSN) and Online ISSN (e-ISSN / eISSN)

These are the two you will encounter most often.

  • Print ISSN (p-ISSN) identifies the printed edition of the journal.
  • Online ISSN (e-ISSN) identifies the electronic/online edition. You will also see this written as eISSN or “Online ISSN” — they all mean the same thing.

So if your journal publishes both a print and a digital edition, it correctly has two ISSNs. Neither one is more “official” than the other; they simply point to different formats of the same content.

Example: Journal of Open Publishing releases a printed volume and a PDF/online edition.
• Print ISSN: 2345-6780
• Online ISSN: 2345-6799
Both are valid. A library cataloguing the print copy uses the first; an indexing service harvesting the online articles uses the second.

This is also why indexing services such as DOAJ, Scopus, and Crossref often ask specifically for your e-ISSN — they are dealing with the online version.

ISSN-L: the “Linking” ISSN

Here is the problem the previous section creates: if one journal can have several ISSNs (print, online, maybe CD-ROM in the old days), how does anyone know they all belong to the same publication?

That is what the ISSN-L (Linking ISSN) solves.

The ISSN-L is a single ISSN chosen to group together all the medium versions of one work. No matter how many formats a journal has, it gets exactly one ISSN-L, and that number acts as the master link tying the print, online, and any other editions together.

In practice, the ISSN-L is usually identical to one of the journal’s existing ISSNs — most often the first one assigned (frequently the print edition).

Example, continued: Our Journal of Open Publishing now has:
• Print ISSN: 2345-6780
• Online ISSN: 2345-6799
• ISSN-L: 2345-6780 ← one number that represents “this journal, in any format”
When a database wants to merge the print and online records into a single journal entry, the ISSN-L is the value it uses.

If you only ever cite one number when you want to refer to the journal as a whole — regardless of format — the ISSN-L is a strong candidate.

ISSN-H: the “History” ISSN

This is the newest type, and the one most editors have never heard of. It was introduced with the latest version of the ISSN standard (ISO 3297:2020) and is still being rolled out across the ISSN Portal, so not every journal has one yet.

While ISSN-L groups versions across formats (print vs. online), ISSN-H (History ISSN) groups versions across time — specifically, the chain of titles a publication has carried over its lifetime.

Journals are renamed, merged, and split more often than people realize. A publication might begin life as Bulletin of Regional Studies, become Regional Studies Review, and later International Review of Regional Science — all genuinely the same ongoing journal, but each title change triggers a brand-new ISSN. Over the decades, one journal can accumulate four or five different ISSNs and catalogue records, which makes its history hard to follow.

The ISSN-H ties that whole succession of titles together under a single cluster identifier, so the entire lineage can be retrieved and even displayed as one connected history.

A practical thing to notice: ISSN-H numbers are newly minted cluster identifiers, not one of the journal’s everyday ISSNs. They currently appear in a distinctive range — you will often see them starting with a 9 (as in the 9120-4690 example at the top). That is your visual cue that you are looking at a history cluster, not a medium-specific number.

Don’t worry if your journal has no ISSN-H. Full assignment is an ongoing project. Its absence simply means the cluster hasn’t been generated for your title yet — it says nothing about the validity of your journal’s ordinary ISSNs.

Putting it all together

Going back to the example from the top of this article:

ISSN: 1808-057X → one specific medium version (here, the online edition)
ISSN-L: 1519-7077 → links all format versions of this journal together
ISSN-H: 9120-4690 → links this journal to its earlier/later renamed titles

Nothing is contradictory. You are looking at one journal described at three levels of grouping: a single edition, the family of formats, and the family of titles over time.

Quick reference

Type Stands for What it groups One per…
ISSN International Standard Serial Number A single edition of a publication Medium (print, online, etc.)
p-ISSN Print ISSN The printed edition Print version
e-ISSN / eISSN Electronic / Online ISSN The online edition Online version
ISSN-L Linking ISSN All format versions of one work Work (across media)
ISSN-H History ISSN All successive titles over time Title lineage (across time)

What this means for your OJS journal

If you run a journal on OJS (Open Journal Systems), your journal settings include fields for both a Print ISSN and an Online ISSN. A few practical pointers:

  • If your journal is online-only (as most modern OJS journals are), fill in the Online ISSN (e-ISSN) and leave the Print ISSN empty. Do not invent or reuse a print ISSN you don’t actually have.
  • Enter ISSNs in the correct field. Indexing services and harvesters read these values, and putting a print number in the online slot (or vice versa) causes mismatches in DOAJ, Crossref, and discovery databases.
  • When an index, Crossref, or a DOI registration asks for the ISSN, it almost always wants your e-ISSN — the identifier for the version that is actually online.
  • The ISSN-L is useful when you want a single value that represents your journal as a whole, independent of format.
  • You generally won’t need to enter an ISSN-H anywhere in OJS; it is a portal-level cluster maintained by the ISSN International Centre, not something you assign yourself.

Getting these identifiers right is one of the quieter but more important parts of running a well-indexed journal — it is how the wider scholarly infrastructure knows that your print edition, your online edition, and your journal’s earlier names are all, in fact, you.

Need help configuring your journal’s metadata, ISSNs, or indexing settings in OJS? That’s exactly what we do at ojs-services.com.

The post ISSN, ISSN-L, ISSN-H, Print and Online ISSN: What All Those Codes Actually Mean? first appeared on OPEN JOURNAL SYSTEM SERVICES.

Getting your journal indexed: what to do before you apply

✇OPEN JOURNAL SYSTEM SERVICES
OJS-Services

What indexing is, when to apply, and how to prepare your website, your articles and your author base. A plain-English guide for editors and journal owners — no jargon, with a readiness checklist at the end.The basics
What indexing is & why it matters

An index (or database) evaluates academic journals against a set of quality criteria and lists those that qualify. Once a journal is indexed, its articles become far easier for researchers to discover, are more likely to be cited, and the journal earns greater trust within the scholarly community.

In short, being indexed grows three things: visibility (your articles surface in searches), credibility (an independent body has vetted your journal) and your readership and author pool (a journal in a respected index attracts stronger submissions).

A common confusion: not every index carries the same weight. Automatic discovery services like Google Scholar include almost everyone and are not a mark of quality. Editorially reviewed databases like DOAJ, Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed/MEDLINE and EBSCO are the ones that signal real credibility.

Classification
Types of indexes

To plan a sensible strategy, it helps to think of indexes in four broad groups:

A  Discovery crawlers
Automatic, no application needed. E.g. Google Scholar. Good for visibility, but not proof of quality.
B  Open-access directories
Measure open access & transparency. E.g. DOAJ. For most journals this is the first serious target.
C  Citation / quality databases
The most selective tier. E.g. Scopus, Web of Science (SCIE, SSCI, ESCI). Full editorial review.
D  Subject databases
Focused on one field. E.g. PubMed/MEDLINE (health), EBSCO collections, ERIC (education), EconLit.

Mindset
Don’t wait for perfection to start

One of the most common questions we receive is some version of: “Do I need everything — the website, the policies, the indexing — ready before I launch the journal?” The answer is no, and waiting for that is the single biggest reason journals never get off the ground.

Indexing is not a prerequisite for publishing — it is a reward for publishing well, consistently, over time. No major index will even consider a journal that has not yet published. So the order is the opposite of what many people imagine:

1
First
Set up the website & the journal
Get a proper journal platform (e.g. OJS) running, with your core pages and policies in place. This is the foundation — it does not need to be flawless on day one.
2
Then
Publish your first issue (≈5+ articles)
Run real submissions through peer review and release your first issue with a meaningful number of articles. This proves the journal is alive and working.
3
Early on
Apply for and obtain your ISSN
Register with your national ISSN centre and get your number (preferably an e-ISSN). Almost every index requires it, so do this as soon as you are publishing.
4
From here on — in parallel
Keep publishing while preparing for indexes
This is the key idea: run two tracks at once. On one track you prepare and publish the next issue on schedule; on the other you steadily strengthen policies, metadata, DOIs and author diversity so you are ready to apply to DOAJ, then Scopus / Web of Science and beyond.
The takeaway: launch first, publish consistently, and build toward indexing as you go. A journal with two solid published issues and growing is far closer to indexing than a “perfect” journal that has never released a single article.

Timing
When to apply

Applying to a major index too early — before the journal has matured — usually ends in rejection. Worse, some indexes impose a waiting period (often 6–12 months) before you can reapply. So timing matters. You are generally in good shape to apply once most of the signals below are true:

✓You have a valid ISSN.

Preferably an e-ISSN; your journal should be listed on portal.issn.org.

✓You have a real publishing track record.

A common expectation: roughly a year of regular publishing, and at least 5 peer-reviewed research/review articles per year (DOAJ’s minimum volume).

✓Your publication schedule is consistent.

Issues appear on time, without long gaps. Irregularity is one of the most common rejection reasons.

✓Your policy & masthead pages are complete.

Peer review, ethics, copyright, open access and editorial board are all published on the site.

✓Your content isn’t single-author or single-institution.

Submissions from different institutions — and ideally different countries — have started to come in.
Practical advice: set your targets in stages. With a new journal, don’t go straight for Scopus — first build Google Scholar visibility and prepare for DOAJ. That groundwork is exactly what the top-tier indexes look for later.

Preparation · 1
Website & transparency

Almost every index shares one expectation: who the journal is, how it works and what it promises must be clearly stated on the site. Reviewers typically visit your website first. Make sure each of the following is present, clear and up to date:

✓Journal name & identity

A unique, non-misleading name shown consistently on the homepage and the “About the Journal” page.

✓Editorial board

Members listed with name, affiliation, country and ideally academic profile links (ORCID, institutional page).

✓Author guidelines & submission rules

The submission process, formatting requirements and ethical criteria spelled out in detail.

✓Peer review process

State clearly which type of review you use (e.g. double-blind). All content must be reviewed.

✓Publication ethics policy

How you handle plagiarism, conflicts of interest and misconduct — ideally referencing COPE guidelines.

✓Open access & copyright policy

Whether access is free, and who holds copyright (e.g. an appropriate Creative Commons licence).

✓Publication frequency

How often the journal is published (e.g. 2 or 4 issues per year) must be clearly stated.

✓Ownership & management

The owner/publisher and contact details should be visible.

✓A healthy website

No broken links, no inaccessible PDFs, no outdated information. This shows the journal is actively maintained.
Note: If you run OJS, most of these are configured under Settings → Journal / Website / Workflow. The structure already follows the standards — your job is simply to fill in every field completely and consistently.

Preparation · 2
Article quality & technical standards

Indexes judge a journal not only by its policies but by the content it actually publishes. There are two dimensions: the scholarly quality of the work, and its technical/metadata hygiene.

Scholarly quality

Original, peer-reviewed articles with clear methods and proper references. A balance weighted toward original research (rather than mostly reviews or translations) is preferred. Every published item must genuinely have passed peer review.

Technical & metadata standards

✓English metadata

Even for non-English articles, provide an English title, abstract and keywords — critical for international indexes.

✓DOI assignment

A persistent identifier (Crossref DOI) for every article is a strong plus.

✓Full-text access

Each article must be individually accessible, downloadable and directly linkable — a single bundled PDF is not enough.

✓Clean references

A consistent citation style and, where possible, DOI links in the reference list.

✓Machine-readable format

HTML and/or JATS XML full text makes it far easier for indexes to harvest your content.
Tip: Crossref membership and DOI assignment, metadata sharing via OAI-PMH, and HTML/JATS XML full text — these three put you ahead of competing journals when you move up to the top-tier indexes.

Preparation · 3
Author & country diversity

Something many journal owners overlook — but which the top-tier indexes (especially Scopus and Web of Science) take seriously: showing that your journal is an international scholarly platform, not a local bulletin. Diversity is how you prove it.

i  Author diversity
Articles shouldn’t all come from one institution or the same small group of authors. Contributions from a range of universities break the “closed journal” perception.
ii  Geographic spread
Authors from more than one country, where possible. International contribution is the clearest sign of genuine global interest.
iii  Editorial board diversity
A board drawn from several institutions and countries, made up of recognised names in the field.
iv  Reviewer pool
A broad, independent pool of reviewers demonstrates the impartiality of your review process.
Why it matters: indexes are wary of closed journals where a handful of people publish each other’s work. Diversity signals impartiality, reach and real academic impact. Build it authentically — by genuinely promoting your journal internationally — not through artificial shortcuts.

Strategy
Which index to start with

The healthiest path is to climb the indexes in order, as your journal matures. This staged route works for most journals:

1
Visibility · Immediately
Google Scholar & basic crawlers
No application needed; if your site is configured correctly it is crawled automatically. Gives early visibility and lets citations start to accumulate.
2
First serious target · After ~1 year
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
Proves your open-access and transparency standards. Expects roughly a year of publishing or 5+ research articles per year, a clear licence and complete policy pages. A strong stepping stone toward higher indexes.
3
Databases & your field
EBSCO & subject databases
Aggregators like EBSCO and discipline-specific databases — e.g. PubMed/MEDLINE for health sciences, ERIC for education — are realistic mid-stage targets that widen your reach within your field.
4
Top tier · Mature journals
Scopus & Web of Science
The most selective targets. They require consistency, international author and board diversity, citation performance and complete metadata. Apply here only after you’ve solidly cleared the lower rungs.

Watch out
Common mistakes
×Waiting until everything is “perfect” before launching — instead of publishing and improving in parallel.
×Applying to major indexes too early, with thin or incomplete content.
×Policy pages (ethics, peer review, copyright) that are missing or contradict each other.
×Broken links, inaccessible PDFs and outdated information.
×Missing English abstracts and keywords.
×Content limited to a single institution or author group.
×An irregular publication schedule with delayed issues.
×Paying to be “listed” by predatory indexes and mistaking it for real indexing — it costs you credibility.
Golden rule: if an index asks for a fee but performs no genuine editorial review, stay away. Reputable databases evaluate your content — they don’t sell you a spot on a list.

Summary
Am I ready? Quick checklist

If you can answer “yes” to all of the following, you are most likely ready to apply:

✓You have a valid ISSN and an ISSN Portal listing.
✓You’ve published for ~1 year, or have 5+ peer-reviewed articles per year.
✓Ethics, peer-review, copyright and open-access policies are complete on the site.
✓The editorial board is listed with affiliation and country.
✓Articles carry English abstracts + keywords and, ideally, DOIs.
✓Every article has full-text access and there are no broken links.
✓Content comes from varied institutions/authors; international contribution has begun.
✓Your publication schedule runs on time, without gaps.

Let’s get your journal index-ready

From setting up a standards-compliant OJS journal to bringing an existing journal up to international standards — DOI, open access, metadata and indexing preparation — we’re here to help.

Get in Touch

This guide is for general information; always follow each index’s official, current criteria when you apply.

The post Getting your journal indexed: what to do before you apply first appeared on OPEN JOURNAL SYSTEM SERVICES.

COAR Annual Conference 2026

✇EIFL news, blogs, events, media
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Iryna Kuchma, EIFL Open Access Programme Manager, will speak about Eastern European developments and challenges with multilingual content discovery at the COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) Annual Conference 2026. More information about the conference and a programme is here. 

EIFL is a COAR founding member and Iryna is a COAR Board member. 

Research Workflows with Elicit, Consensus, and ResearchRabbit

✇EIFL news, blogs, events, media
Edvaldas_B

The webinar will focus on the practical aspects of searching, discovering, and exploring scholarly literature using the AI-powered research tools Elicit, Consensus, and ResearchRabbit. Participants will learn how the free versions of these tools can support literature reviews, identify relevant publications, uncover research trends, and improve research workflows.

It is intended for researchers, librarians, and trainers interested in using AI tools to support scholarly research and learning.

Research Workflows with SciSpace and Undermind

✇EIFL news, blogs, events, media
Edvaldas_B

Join this EIFL webinar to learn more about research workflows using AI tools

The webinar will focus on the practical aspects of searching, discovering, and exploring scholarly literature using the free versions of AI-powered research assistants SciSpace and Undermind. Participants will learn how these tools can support literature reviews, identify relevant publications, uncover research trends, and improve research workflows.

It is intended for researchers, librarians, and trainers interested in using AI tools to support scholarly research and learning.

EIFL joins landmark statement on Open Science

✇EIFL news, blogs, events, media
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Following a consultation in January 2026 by the European Commission on the European Research Area (ERA) Act, six major European organisations – ALLEA, EIFL, IFLA, LIBER, OPERAS, and SPARC Europe have issued a landmark joint statement.  

The joint statement reflects on the current state of open science in Europe and outlines key remaining barriers that require a coordinated approach for open science to reach its full potential. 

EIFL in Geneva

✇EIFL news, blogs, events, media
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EIFL’s Copyright and Libraries Programme Manager, Teresa Hackett, will attend two events in Geneva: a public lecture by renowned international scholar, Professor Maggie Chon, and the 48th session of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR).

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