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“UGC CARE Approved Journal.” “Scopus indexed.” “Impact Factor 7.2.” “Peer reviewed.” Every journal website says something. This is the decoder — what each claim genuinely certifies, what it does not, and exactly where to check it at its source in about five minutes.
Every journal website makes claims about itself. Some are precise and verifiable. Some are true but mean far less than they appear to. A few are simply decorative. The problem for an author is that they all look identical on a homepage — a row of logos, a badge, a number.
The way out is not to trust harder or to distrust everything. It is to know, claim by claim, what each one actually certifies and where its source record lives. That is what this page is. It takes the ten claims you will meet most often, states plainly what each proves and does not prove, and names the place you can confirm it in a browser tab.
Applying the decoder to us? Good — that is the point. Read our peer-review policy, ethics and charges, then the call for papers when you are ready to submit.
₹971 INR Indian authors · $41 USD international · payable after acceptanceWhat it proves • what it does not • where to verify it.
That the journal was on a national reference list of quality journals during the list era, or that it behaves the way that list expected.
Any current certification. UGC discontinued the listing in October 2024, so no journal can produce a live CARE status today.
Ask which period the claim refers to, then check your own institution’s current written rule.
That Elsevier’s Scopus content selection committee accepted the title into its curated source list, and that it currently meets Scopus’s coverage criteria.
That every article is good, that coverage is permanent, or that any particular paper is in Scopus. Titles are re-evaluated and can be discontinued.
Search Scopus Sources by title and ISSN; check coverage years and active status.
Inclusion in one of Clarivate’s collections — which one matters enormously.
That the journal is in SCIE, SSCI or AHCI. The Emerging Sources Citation Index is also “Web of Science” and is a different tier.
Search the Clarivate Master Journal List and read which collection is named.
That the Directory of Open Access Journals accepted the title against its open-access, licensing, peer-review and transparency criteria.
Citation impact or selective indexing. DOAJ assesses open-access practice, not scholarly influence.
Search doaj.org directly by ISSN.
That a crawler can reach and parse the articles — a discoverability fact.
Any selection, curation or quality assessment whatsoever. Google Scholar indexes almost anything it can read.
Nothing to verify — treat it as a baseline, not a credential.
That the publisher registers persistent identifiers and deposits metadata, so citations to the article keep resolving.
Peer-review quality, list status, or inclusion in any database. A DOI is plumbing, not a grade.
Open several published DOIs and confirm each resolves and its metadata matches the article.
That a serial title exists in the international register, with a recorded publisher and country.
Quality of any kind. Registering an ISSN is an administrative step, available to any serial.
Search the ISSN Portal and confirm the registered title matches exactly.
A process claim — that submissions are assessed by subject experts before an editorial decision.
Anything at all, unless the process is documented. The words are free to type.
Read the published policy: which model, how reviewers are chosen, how conflicts are handled, who decides.
Depends entirely on the provider. The Journal Impact Factor is a specific Clarivate metric published in the Journal Citation Reports.
Nothing, if the provider is unnamed. Many scores sold as “impact factor” are computed by companies with no relationship to Clarivate.
Ask which provider, which metric, which year, and where the methodology is published.
The publisher’s operating model — a lean open-access operation rather than a large commercial platform.
Low quality. Nor does a high fee prove high quality; some predatory operations charge premium prices precisely because the number reads as prestige.
Compare the fee against what it delivers, and get every add-on priced in writing before you pay.
Ten claims, one habit: take every one off the journal’s own website and look it up at its source. Then submit with confidence.
₹971 INR Indian authors · $41 USD international · payable after acceptanceThe same claim carries wildly different weight depending on where you found it.
Only the top rung survives contact with a determined clone. Everything below it can be copied in minutes.
These get used interchangeably in journal advertising. They are not interchangeable.
| System | Run by | How a title gets in | Coverage | Selective? | Verify at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scopus | Elsevier | Content Selection & Advisory Board reviews each title against published criteria | Global, all disciplines, ~unified citation index | Selective — inclusion is a curation decision | scopus.com/sources |
| Web of Science | Clarivate | Editorial evaluation into a specific collection (SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, ESCI) | Global, tiered by collection | Selective — but the tier matters as much as the fact | mjl.clarivate.com |
| UGC CARE | UGC (India) — discontinued Oct 2024 | Group I assessed by the UGC Cell; Group II drawn from globally recognised databases | India-focused reference list | Was selective; no live list today | No live list to search |
| DOAJ | Directory of Open Access Journals | Application assessed against open-access, licensing, review and transparency criteria | Global, open-access journals only | Selective on OA practice, not on citation impact | doaj.org |
| Google Scholar | Automated crawling and parsing | Everything reachable on the open web | Not selective — no curation at all | No source list exists | |
| CrossRef | CrossRef (membership body) | Publisher membership plus metadata deposit | Global, all publisher types | Not a quality assessment — an identifier registry | search.crossref.org |
It is the wrong comparison, and the original version of this article made it too. They were never the same kind of thing. Scopus is a database — a global, curated citation index run by Elsevier, with a content selection committee that accepts or rejects titles against published criteria. UGC CARE was a list — a national reference list maintained by UGC, whose Group II was populated from globally recognised databases including Scopus and Web of Science.
So one pointed at the other. Asking which is “better” is like asking whether a library catalogue is better than a reading list drawn from it. What matters to you is narrower and more answerable: which of them currently covers this specific journal, and does my institution care?
The short version. The full history, groups and year-by-year status live in the companion guide.
The University Grants Commission — Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics (UGC CARE) was an Indian initiative that curated and maintained a list of recognised academic journals across disciplines. The list served academic institutions, researchers and scholars as a way to identify reputable journals for publishing research, and was periodically updated as titles were added or removed against quality criteria.
Researchers and institutions referred to it to decide whether a journal was eligible for publication, promotion or other academic purposes. It was organised into Group I (journals found qualified through CARE’s own protocols) and Group II (journals indexed in globally recognised databases), replacing an earlier arrangement of Groups A, B, C and D. Titles submitted by Council Members and by Universities were analysed by the UGC Cell.
Its stated purposes were to promote quality research, academic integrity and publication ethics across Indian universities; to encourage high-quality publication in reputed journals and raise global standing; to prevent publication in dubious, predatory or sub-standard journals that reflected adversely on Indian academia; and to maintain the reference list for all academic purposes.
UGC discontinued the listing framework in October 2024, following its 584th meeting, and moved toward suggestive parameters for selecting peer-reviewed journals. Everything above is therefore historical context for reading a claim — not a live system.
Two different subject schemes, routinely mixed up in journal advertising.
All Science Journal Classification is Elsevier’s own taxonomy for Scopus — 27 subject areas grouped under four broad clusters. When a journal quotes an ASJC code, it is describing where Scopus files it, nothing more.
The UGC CARE list reported Group I across five categories — Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities, Multidisciplinary and Indian Languages. That last category is specific to the Indian list and has no ASJC equivalent.
| CARE Group I subject | Reported total |
|---|---|
| Sciences | 422 |
| Social Sciences | 347 |
| Arts & Humanities | 383 |
| Multidisciplinary | 56 |
| Indian Languages | 248 |
| Total | 1,456 |
A list-era snapshot, preserved for reference. The chart and full commentary are in the UGC CARE list guide.
Worth knowing, because the same failings are what you are screening for today.
Published material that did not meet the standard the reference list was created to protect.
Issues appearing irregularly, or an archive that stopped moving — a signal the editorial operation had stalled.
Not satisfying the analysis protocols on review, ethics, transparency or editorial practice.
Complaints about journals not following standard publishing practice; those found involved were removed immediately.
Screening for exactly those failings is what our editorial process is built to prevent. See the policies, then submit.
₹971 INR Indian authors · $41 USD international · payable after acceptanceHow to test any claim, and catch a cloned journal while you are at it.
A cloned site copies the title first. Search the exact ISSN on the ISSN Portal and note the registered title, publisher and country. If the ISSN belongs to a different publisher, stop there.
Scopus Sources, the Clarivate Master Journal List, DOAJ. Search by ISSN, not by name — a clone shares the name but the record will not match the site you are looking at.
Authoritative records carry the publisher’s real URL. If the record points somewhere other than the site asking for your money, that difference is the whole answer.
Open them and watch where they land. Clones frequently reuse a genuine journal’s DOIs, which then resolve to the real publisher — not to the site you submitted through.
Find a named editor, then reach them through their institutional page — never through a contact form on the site you are checking.
Other authors and librarians publish warnings. Fifteen minutes of searching has saved a great many manuscripts.
Because the name is the part a clone copies first. A cloned journal takes a genuine title, its ISSN, its logo and often whole pages of its site, and puts them on an unrelated domain to collect submissions and fees. Searching a database by name will happily return the real journal — and you will conclude, wrongly, that the site in front of you is indexed.
Searching by ISSN returns the authoritative record, including the publisher and the real URL. Comparing that URL against the site asking for your money is usually the entire investigation.
UGC’s own clone alerts documented exactly this pattern: the UGC Cell for Journal Analysis at the Centre for Publication Ethics, SPPU Pune, was notified of cloned journals and of online versions of print-only journals in which the ISSN, title and logo had all been copied. Journals found involved in unethical practices were removed immediately.
If you have already submitted or paid: stop any further payment, write to withdraw the manuscript and keep the correspondence, report the site to your institution’s research cell, and if money moved by card or bank transfer raise it with your bank promptly — the window for a dispute is short.
Price is a claim too, and it deserves the same decoding as the rest.
Most Indian authors are not funded. A research scholar paying from a stipend, an assistant professor meeting a promotion requirement, a postgraduate publishing from a dissertation — for all of them low cost publication is not a preference but the condition that decides whether the paper appears at all.
Two errors are common, and they pull in opposite directions. The first is treating a low fee as proof of a scam. The second is treating a high fee as proof of quality. Both substitute a number for the work of checking. What a fee actually tells you is the publisher’s operating model — a lean open-access operation can fund genuine peer review, CrossRef DOI registration and long-term hosting at a modest charge, while a large commercial publisher carries platform, marketing and profit costs a small one does not.
Decode a fee the same way you decode an indexing claim: ask what it delivers, get the total in writing, and confirm the sequence — review first, payment after. A journal asking for money before it has assessed your manuscript has inverted the process, and that inversion is a clearer signal than any number.
| Item | Indian authors | International authors |
|---|---|---|
| Publication charge — full paper online, up to 5 authors | ₹971 INR | $41 USD |
| CrossRef DOI registration (optional) | ₹300 | $20 |
| Hard copy of certificate (optional) | ₹500 | $100 |
| Bundle: printed journal + certificates + DOI (optional) | ₹1100 | $170 |
| Each additional author beyond five | ₹500 | ₹500 |
Every claim on this site is one you can check — ISSN, editors, review policy, ethics, DOI, charges. When it holds up, the submission page is here.
₹971 INR Indian authors · $41 USD international · payable after acceptanceCredits: historical material about the UGC CARE list is drawn from UGC’s own published pages at ugccare.unipune.ac.in and ugc.gov.in.
Disclaimer: our journal operates a rigorous peer-review process and is a refereed journal. For indexing status and inclusion in databases such as UGC CARE, Scopus or Web of Science, refer to the latest lists on those databases’ own websites. Journal status, coverage, fees and institutional rules change; the information here may become outdated and should be independently verified before you submit or pay. This page is not UGC certification and does not guarantee acceptance by any authority.
Each rung is harder to fake than the one below it. Decide on the top two, never on the bottom two.
The same claim appears on honest and dishonest websites alike. Only the record behind it differs.
| Claim on a website | Verify it here | If it is true you will see |
|---|---|---|
| “UGC CARE Approved” | UGC public notice (Oct 2024) | That the list was discontinued — ask which period the claim means |
| “Scopus indexed” | scopus.com/sources, by ISSN | Title, ISSN, coverage years and active status |
| “Web of Science indexed” | mjl.clarivate.com | The journal in a named collection |
| “DOAJ listed” | doaj.org | A journal record with licence and APC details |
| “Crossref DOI” | doi.org, on several papers | Each DOI resolves to this journal with correct metadata |
| “Impact factor” | The named provider | Provider, metric, year and method — or it is a self-calculated score |
Peer-reviewed, open access, ISSN 2984-8911, Impact Factor 11.25. Transparent low cost publication charges, CrossRef DOI available, review before payment — and every claim on this site is one you can verify at its source. Read the call for papers, then submit online.
Questions? [email protected]
Grouped by intent, so you can see which section above answers each one.
These visible answers also power the FAQ structured data on this page.
During the list era it meant the title appeared on UGC’s reference list of quality journals. Since UGC discontinued the listing in October 2024 it certifies nothing on its own — read it as shorthand for the practices the list was trying to enforce, and confirm your own institution’s current written rule.
They were never the same kind of thing, so “better” is the wrong comparison. Scopus is a global, curated citation database run by Elsevier with its own content selection committee. UGC CARE was a national reference list, and its Group II was drawn from globally recognised databases including Scopus. One is a database; the other was a list that pointed at databases.
That was the premise of Group II — journals indexed in globally recognised databases were carried on that basis. It is a list-era description, not a current arrangement.
All Science Journal Classification is Scopus’s own subject taxonomy — 27 subject areas grouped under four broad clusters. It belongs to Scopus, not to UGC. The UGC CARE list used its own subject split, which reported five categories: Sciences, Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities, Multidisciplinary and Indian Languages.
For low quality of published content, for a lack of timely updates, for failing to meet the standards set by UGC CARE, and — following complaints — for not following standard publishing practices. Journals found involved in unethical practices were removed immediately.
No. Google Scholar is an automated crawler with no selection process. It indexes what it can reach and parse. Treat visibility there as a baseline expectation, never as a credential.
No, and this is one of the most common misreadings. Web of Science contains several collections — SCIE, SSCI, AHCI and the Emerging Sources Citation Index. All of them are legitimately “Web of Science”, but they are different tiers. Always ask which collection, and check the Master Journal List.
Ask three questions: which provider, which metric, and which year. The Journal Impact Factor is a specific Clarivate metric published in the Journal Citation Reports. Many scores marketed as an “impact factor” are computed by unrelated companies with no published methodology.
No. A DOI is a persistent identifier and a metadata deposit — infrastructure that keeps citations resolving. It says nothing about peer review, list status or database coverage.
An ISSN registers that a serial title exists, with a recorded publisher and country. Indexing is a separate decision by a database to cover that title. Every indexed journal has an ISSN; having an ISSN says nothing about being indexed.
Start from the ISSN rather than the name, look the title up in each database it claims, compare the domain in the authoritative record against the site asking for your money, resolve several DOIs from different issues and watch where they land, and contact a named editor through their institutional page.
No. A logo is an image file. The only evidence that counts is a record in the database’s own source list, found by searching the ISSN. Clones and predatory sites copy logos freely, because copying an image costs nothing.
Not by itself. Cost reflects the publisher’s operating model far more than review rigour. A lean open-access journal can fund genuine peer review, CrossRef DOI registration and long-term hosting at a low fee — and a premium fee is no guarantee of anything.
Documented peer review, a named editorial board, published ethics, a working CrossRef DOI, a stable archive, and a fully itemised price with no surprises. A modest fee attached to all of those is safer than a large fee attached to none.
JMVRA publishes its charges in full: ₹971 INR for Indian authors and $41 USD for international authors. That covers online publication of the complete paper for up to five authors, individual softcopy certificates, a confirmation letter, formatting, a unique paper ID, digital library listing, a citation generator and lifetime availability. CrossRef DOI, printed certificates and hard copies are optional add-ons priced separately.
After acceptance, never at submission. Under the published refund policy payments are non-refundable once an article has been accepted, so read the Payment Terms page in full before paying.
JMVRA is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal with ISSN 2984-8911, CrossRef DOI registration, published peer-review and ethics policies and fully disclosed charges. Apply this page’s decoder to every one of those claims — that is exactly what it is for — and confirm acceptance with your own institution before submitting.
No. Only the authority assessing your work can answer that. Take the journal’s evidence to your university, department, research cell, employer or funder and get the rule in writing before you submit or pay.
Search the ISSN in the databases the journal claims. It catches clones, exposes unverifiable indexing claims and takes about five minutes.
Read the current call for papers to confirm scope, article types and deadlines, then submit through the official online submission page. Charges are payable only after acceptance.
Question not answered here? Email [email protected] before you submit — or go straight to the current call for papers.
₹971 INR Indian authors · $41 USD international · payable after acceptance
