What is an international journal?

Answer 1

All journals are not same. Anyone can start a print or on-line, open access journal and begin to earn by seeking submission fee. Publication in such journals can bring a great disrepute to the author. So check carefully where you are publishing your paper/article.

An International Journal has following attributes (Compulsory):

(a) An ISSN number

(b) Receives recognition and support from a committed editorial board comprising reputed scholars from across the world

(c) A well defined (often very strict) peer review process

(d) Regular contributions from authors belonging to many different countries

(e) Indexing and Abstracting by prestigious internationalagencies

(f) International circulation

(g) The publisher operates at the international level [Blackwell, Sage, Routledge, Elsevier, Macmillan etc.] or brought out by an international university/institute [Oxford, Cambridge, Standford etc.]

A journal brought out by an individual as a publisher or a group of individuals is not international even if it claims to be so.

Optional: Impact factor adds a great prestige to the journal. Note that Impact factors are calculated yearly for those journals that are indexed in the Journal Citation Reports.

Beware:

The substandard journals, with a focus on making money, mislead the authors by mentioning 'impact factor' which is not awarded by Thompson ISI. Either they calculate the impact factor on their own or get it from some agency which dupes unscrupulous but unaware editors of these substandard journals. Unfortunately these journals include the word 'international' in the title itself.