Ethics in Publishing Gets Its Own Journal

Fresh air and sunlight are said to be the best disinfectants. The recently launched GW Journal of Ethics in Publishing offers plenty of both.

Fraud, plagiarism, misinformation, and misdirection – they are all toxins polluting scholarly publishing like chemicals tainting a water supply.  A new journal from faculty and students at George Washington University hopes to provide counteracting doses of probing research and thoughtful analysis.

The ambitious goal of the recently launched GW Journal of Ethics in Publishing is to be a platform for unvarnished discussion of the realities of publishing, including diversity and inclusion, accessibility, sustainability, and equity, according to John Warren, the journal’s originator and GWU associate professor.

Ethics in Publishing has long been a “capstone course” in GW’s Master of Professional Studies program in publishing, said Warren, who is the director. George Washington University associate professor. In 2020, Warren decided the subject also deserved its own scholarly journal.

“First of all, we’re really into niches here in the publishing program.  We talk a lot about niches and micro-niches.  So one thing I saw was that there’s quite a few journals of publishing an there’s also some great journals on ethics.  But there wasn’t really a journal specializing on ethics in publishing,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

“The main impetus besides the niche itself was to provide a platform for students to publish their work and to get them some experience working on a journal”