JMVRA Impact Factor 11.25: How It Is Calculated

Journal Impact Factors Explained — A Complete and Candid Guide

Hardly any number in academic publishing causes as much confusion, and as much justified doubt, as "Impact Factor." Authors notice a journal advertising a high figure and fairly ask whether it is genuine, and why it differs so much from what they have seen for well-known Scopus or Web of Science journals. This guide answers that question frankly for JMVRA in particular, and sets out the wider bibliometric background so that any researcher can assess a journal's claimed metrics critically — for JMVRA or for any other journal. Whenever a figure is quoted, the first thing to find out is who calculated it and how.

A Brief History of "Impact Factor"

Eugene Garfield proposed the original Impact Factor idea in the 1960s, as a way of helping librarians decide which journals to subscribe to, using the average number of citations per article over a set period. The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) formalized it; that body was later bought by Thomson Reuters and then by Clarivate, and today the figure is released every year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The JCR Impact Factor is computed for a strictly curated set of journals in the Web of Science Core Collection, with a fixed formula: citations in a given year to articles from the two preceding years, divided by the number of "citable items" published in those two years.

Importantly, an official JCR Impact Factor goes only to journals admitted to Clarivate's own curated index after a long and selective editorial evaluation. Most academic journals in the world, including many long-established, legitimate, peer-reviewed titles, have no JCR Impact Factor, simply because they were never assessed for or admitted to that particular list. Lacking one is not, in itself, a sign of poor quality — it reflects Clarivate's selective rules for inclusion.

Scopus and CiteScore

Elsevier's Scopus database operates a parallel selection process of its own, curated separately, and publishes a metric of its own, CiteScore, which is calculated across a four-year citation window against Scopus's own curated journal list. As with JCR, getting into Scopus requires a formal application and editorial review, and CiteScore values, although computed differently from JCR's Impact Factor, are likewise limited by Scopus's own selective coverage.

The Place of Google Scholar Metrics

Google Scholar works in a basically different way. It does not curate a fixed list of "approved" journals; it crawls scholarly material automatically and indexes it wherever it is found — journal websites, institutional repositories, preprint servers, conference proceedings, thesis and dissertation repositories and more. With this automated, non-selective method, Google Scholar's citation counts typically come from a much larger and more varied set of citing documents than JCR or Scopus take into account. If a citation-based metric (such as an H-index or a Google Scholar-derived "Impact Factor") is computed from this wider set, and lacks JCR's specific "citable items only, exactly two years" denominator rule, the result is very often higher than the matching JCR or Scopus figure for similar citation activity. The difference is structural and methodological — it does not show that either number is "wrong." Understanding this saves you from drawing hasty conclusions when two figures differ.

The H-Index Concept

Physicist Jorge Hirsch introduced the H-index in 2005; it captures productivity and citation impact together: a journal (or author) has an H-index of h if h of its articles have each received at least h citations. Through its "Google Scholar Metrics" feature, Google Scholar brought H-index-style metrics into wide use at journal level, and many journals — JMVRA among them — publish a Google Scholar-derived figure built on the same citation-counting idea, adapted into an "Impact Factor" style number that is recalculated each year, for simpler comparison and for listing on a CV.

The Importance of Citing a Journal's Impact Factor Correctly

Since these are truly different measurements, accurate labeling is important. When an author lists "Impact Factor Details" on a CV with no qualification, an evaluator who knows JCR conventions might reasonably take it to mean a JCR Impact Factor, and then run into a mismatch on failing to find the journal in JCR. That is precisely why JMVRA's own policies (see the Impact Factor policy and Disclaimer) tell authors expressly to describe it as a "Google Scholar-based Impact Factor" each time they cite it — the qualifier separates an honest, verifiable claim from a misleading one.

UGC CARE Is Distinct From Scopus, WoS, or DOAJ

It is a frequent mistake to assume that UGC CARE recognition means Scopus or Web of Science indexing, or the reverse. It does not. UGC CARE (Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics) judged journals by criteria of its own — valid ISSN, transparent peer review, disclosure of the editorial board, an anti-plagiarism policy, and others — wholly apart from the commercial indexing decisions of Clarivate or Elsevier. For JMVRA, the relevant statement is alignment with UGC's Suggested Parameters for Choosing Peer-Reviewed Journals. JMVRA does not hold, and does not claim, Scopus, Web of Science or DOAJ status, and authors weighing JMVRA against a particular institutional requirement should find out exactly which recognition that requirement demands.

Ways to Assess Any Journal's Claimed Impact Factor

• Work out who is behind the number: Clarivate (JCR), Elsevier (Scopus), or a separate calculation drawing on Google Scholar
• Look the journal up yourself in the Journal Citation Reports or the Scopus Sources list, and do not simply accept a number the journal reports about itself
• Search for the exact qualifying label — "Google Scholar-based," "JCR," or "CiteScore" — and be wary of a plain "Impact Factor"
• Bear in mind that UGC CARE recognition, DOAJ listing, and Scopus/WoS indexing are three distinct and independent matters, each with different criteria
• Be just as doubtful about unusually high and suspiciously exact numbers that come with no stated methodology — a journal ought to be able to explain, as this page does, exactly how its number was worked out

JMVRA's Position in Plain Terms

JMVRA's Impact Factor of 11.25 is a calculated metric based on citations from Google Scholar and Semantic Scholar to articles published since June 2023; the method is explained on Impact Factor Details. It is not an official Clarivate Journal Impact Factor (JCR), not a JCR Impact Factor and not a Scopus CiteScore, and JMVRA is not at present indexed in Scopus, Web of Science or DOAJ. As a matter of policy, JMVRA keeps up the editorial and ethical standards that these bodies assess — transparent peer review, COPE-based ethics, ISSN registration and open access licensing — whether or when formal indexing in those databases is achieved. Authors are encouraged to cite the figure precisely, as a Google Scholar-based Impact Factor, and to verify any indexing claim for themselves — about JMVRA or any journal — before relying on it for a particular institutional requirement.