Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A researcher preparing a CV entry for a paper published in AI and Ethics checks jcr.clarivate.com directly for the journal's current JCR entry, rather than quoting a single aggregator figure, given that different tracking sites report different numbers under the same 'impact factor' label.
- Is an instance
An editor or program committee comparing candidate journals for an AI-ethics submission notes that AI and Ethics launched in 2021, and specifically checks whether the journal has an official Clarivate JIF yet (newer journals typically need several years of indexed citation history before JCR reports a first figure) rather than assuming every Springer journal has one.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Quoting exaly.com's roughly 6.1 'impact factor' figure for AI and Ethics as if it were confirmed Clarivate JCR data, when the same source separately reports a roughly 3.68 '2-year impact' figure for the same year -- the two numbers disagree, which is a sign at least one is not a straightforward Clarivate JIF and should be checked against a primary source before citing.
- Not an instance
Treating AI and Ethics' JIF, once available, as evidence that any single article published in the journal is rigorous or important -- the metric is a journal-level two-year citation average, not an article-level or author-level quality measure, the same caution DORA applies to every JIF-bearing journal.
Editorial commentary
AI and Ethics’ Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a specific, illustrative instance of the general Journal Impact Factor metric published annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), applied here to a comparatively young journal in a fast-growing field. AI and Ethics (ISSN 2730-5953 print, 2730-5961 online) is published by Springer Nature and launched in 2021, covering the ethical, regulatory, and policy implications of artificial intelligence development and deployment.
What the number actually measures
Where a journal is Clarivate JCR-indexed, its JIF is a ratio: citations received in a given JCR data year to the journal’s citable items (articles and reviews) published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items. This is the same mechanical calculation Clarivate applies to every JCR-indexed title, from a decades-old flagship journal to a title only a few years old — what differs is the citation and publication volume feeding the ratio, and, for a young journal, whether it has accumulated enough indexed citation history yet to receive a JIF at all.
A note on the current figure
Third-party journal-tracking sites report figures for AI and Ethics that do not fully agree with one another, which is worth flagging explicitly rather than picking one number. Aggregator site exaly.com lists a 2024 ‘impact factor’ of roughly 6.1 for the journal alongside a separately labeled 2024 ‘2-year impact’ figure of roughly 3.68 — two different numbers for the same year under two different metric labels, which suggests at least one may reflect a Scopus/CiteScore-style calculation rather than a Clarivate JIF specifically, since aggregators do not always distinguish these clearly. CASRAI was not able to independently confirm a single authoritative figure against jcr.clarivate.com (subscription-gated) or the journal’s own Springer Nature page (login-walled at the time of writing). Because AI and Ethics only launched in 2021, also confirm directly whether the journal is currently JCR-indexed at all and for which JCR data year, before citing any specific number in a formal context such as a CV, grant application, or tenure file — Clarivate updates JCR every June, and newly indexed journals can take a few release cycles to appear.
Worked example
If a JCR-indexed journal published 150 citable items across two preceding years, and those items collectively received 900 citations in the JCR data year, the resulting JIF would be 900 / 150 = 6.0 — the same arithmetic Clarivate applies uniformly across JCR-indexed titles regardless of field or journal age. The formula does not change for a newer journal; only whether the journal has enough indexed citation history to be assigned a figure at all changes.
Why a young, fast-growing field complicates the figure
AI ethics as a publishing niche has expanded rapidly since AI and Ethics launched in 2021, with new dedicated venues, special issues, and cross-listed AI-and-society content appearing across many journals rather than concentrating in one title. A young journal’s early JIF, once assigned, can also be more volatile year to year than an established journal’s, since it is being computed over a smaller, still-growing base of citable items and citations. Treat an early figure as less stable than a long-running journal’s multi-year track record.
Why this number alone is a poor stand-in for quality
Citation-tracking organizations including DORA and the CoARA coalition caution against using a journal-level metric like the JIF to evaluate an individual article, author, or grant applicant. This applies as much to a young, topically focused journal like AI and Ethics as to a long-established flagship title — a JIF describes a journal’s two-year citation average, not the rigor of any specific published paper on AI governance, bias, or policy.
Counter-example
Quoting a single aggregator’s ‘impact factor’ number for AI and Ethics without noting which metric and year it reflects is a sourcing error, given that different tracking sites report different figures under the same label for this journal specifically. Likewise, describing one widely shared AI and Ethics article as ‘having’ the journal’s impact factor conflates an article-level outcome with a journal-level average, the same conflation DORA’s guidance warns against for every JIF-bearing journal.
Related terms
- Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — the general metric this page illustrates with one journal’s current, disputed figure.
- CiteScore — Elsevier/Scopus’s competing journal-level metric, a different window and denominator than the Clarivate JIF, and a likely source of some of the divergent figures reported for this journal.
- Journal Citation Reports (JCR) — the Clarivate publication that reports JIF annually, where indexing status should be checked for a young journal.
- DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) — the reform commitment behind the over-reliance caveat above.
- Nature’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) — another single-journal illustrative instance, for comparison across journal age and field.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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