2024Q3 Reports: Publication Ethics Committee Co-chairs

Overview

In 2024, ACL formed a new Publication Ethics Committee. This committee is tasked with creating policies and processes to provide a fair publication process and to prevent harm on issues related to reviewing and publishing research.

Committee Formation

The committee currently consists of three co-chars: Aoife Cahill, Leon Derczynski, Kokil Jaidka (listed in order of surname, alphabetical), each expecting to serve a 5-year term.

The committee will also recruit 4-12 additional committee members for 3-year terms. Recruitment for these positions has not yet started.

Committee Activities

The committee has written a new policy to cover ethical concerns that arise during the publication process. The policy was informed by similar policies in other large organizations similar to ACL (e.g. IEEE, ACK, COLM, COPE, etc.), revised with input from the ACL exec, and formally adopted by the ACL Exec in June 2024 (https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/ACL_Policy_on_Publication_Ethics).

Additionally, the committee is currently working on a document that will describe the implementation of this policy. Currently, the focus is on identifying a case-management system that will meet the needs of the committee to allow for efficient, fair, and well-documented review of any complaints. We are exploring the use of the ACL github account as a possible solution for this.

Related Committees

We are working with the ACL Ethics Committee on setting up mechanisms to broadly exchange relevant information between committees.