2026Q3 Reports: Ethics Committee Co-chairs: Difference between revisions

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Prior Reports: [[https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=2025Q1_Reports:_Ethics_Committee_Co-chairs '25 Q1]] [[https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/2024Q1_Reports:_Ethics_Committee_Co-chairs '24 Q1]] [[https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/2024Q3_Reports:_Ethics_Committee_Co-chairs '24 Q3]]
Prior Reports: [[https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/2026Q1_Reports:_Ethics_Committee_Co-chairs '26 Q1]]
[[https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php?title=2025Q1_Reports:_Ethics_Committee_Co-chairs '25 Q1]] [[https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/2024Q1_Reports:_Ethics_Committee_Co-chairs '24 Q1]]  


''N.B.: This document is authored expressly for the purpose of informing the ACL Executive Board as required for the Quarter 1 2025 documentation. It is meant to be read by the ACL Executive Board and is also suitable for the ACL membership and the general public.''
''N.B.: This document is authored expressly for the purpose of informing the ACL Executive Board as required for the Quarter 3 2026 documentation. It is meant to be read by the ACL Executive Board and is also suitable for the ACL membership and the general public.''




''The content of this page is work in progress as of March 9, 2026.''
''The content of this page is work-in-progress as of 19 Jun 2026.''




== Overview ==
== Overview ==
The purview of the ACL Ethics Committee (AEC) is to define a set of guidelines and processes for dealing with ethical concerns, coordinate with the *ACL event ethics chairs on ethical reviewing, and coordinate the ethics resources (Source: [https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/Formation_of_the_ACL_Ethics_Committee ACLWeb]).
The purview of the ACL Ethics Committee (AEC) is to define a set of guidelines and processes for dealing with ethical concerns, coordinate with the *ACL event ethics chairs on ethical reviewing, and coordinate the creation and dissemination of resources on ethics (Source: [https://www.aclweb.org/adminwiki/index.php/Formation_of_the_ACL_Ethics_Committee ACLWeb]).
 
Our committee is structured with three subcommittees:
 
* [[#Ethics Tutorial, Education and Outreach]]
* [[#Ethical Reviewing Guidelines]]
* [[#ACL Ethics Committee Scope]]
 
== Changes in Leadership and Membership Composition ==
 
We would like to put on the record thanks to our at-large committee members and past co-chairs from the previous term.  As the terms of the previous committee members came to an end, new members were invited to join. This year, the first meeting of the committee was held on Wednesday, January 27, 2026. In selecting the new members, we carefully considered geographic and gender diversity, as well as outstanding expertise in ethics in NLP. 
 
* '''Monojit Choudhury''' – [mailto:monojit.choudhury@mbzuai.ac.ae monojit.choudhury@mbzuai.ac.ae] (Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), Abu Dhabi) 
 
New student members in 2025:
* '''Punya Syon Pandey'''  –  [mailto:punya.pandey@mail.utoronto.ca punya.pandey@mail.utoronto.ca] (University of Toronto, Canada) 
* '''Esther Gan'''  – [mailto:esther.gan@u.nus.edu esther.gan@u.nus.edu] (National University of Singapore)
 
New chairs in 2025:
* '''Zhijing Jin''' – [mailto:jinzhi@ethz.ch jinzhi@ethz.ch] (University of Toronto, Canada) 
* '''Aurélie Névéol''' – [mailto:aurelie.neveol@lisn.fr aurelie.neveol@lisn.fr] (LISN, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, France) 
 
As per our ratified convention, the meetings are held every last Wednesday of the month, but rotating 8 hours in time of meeting, so as not to overly (dis)advantage any member in any particular timezone.


== Ethics Tutorial, Education and Outreach ==
== Ethics Tutorial, Education and Outreach ==
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The ethics committee has continued to engage in sharing information about ethics and ethics policies with the community. Some of the main actions conducted include the following:  
The ethics committee has continued to engage in sharing information about ethics and ethics policies with the community. Some of the main actions conducted include the following:  


* Update of the ACL ethics committee website with ethics tutorial material from the [[https://ethics.aclweb.org/tutorials/ACL_2025/ ACL 2025 material]]
* Submitted a tutorial proposal for EMNLP '26 (Budapest, Hungary) and AACL-IJCNLP (Hengqin, China).
* Update of the [[https://ethics.aclweb.org/resources/ethics-reading-list/ Ethics reading list]]
* Working with past members to propose a special issue on ethics to be hosted by ''Computational Linguistics''.  This proposal has been accepted and the call for papers has been recently disseminated.
* Creation of an information page about [[https://ethics.aclweb.org/roles/ "Roles in NLP"]]
* Held a Birds-of-a-Feather session at EACL '26.
* Creation of an information page about [[https://ethics.aclweb.org/resources/chairs-metadata/ Ethics Committee Chairs Metadata at CL/NLP Conferences]]
* Held a call with the ACL Exec's interested and available membership to ask about their wishes for AEC's work. We were charged with the creation of guidelines for '''appropriate use of AI for research'''.
* Updating the [[https://ethics.aclweb.org/resources/chairs-metadata/ Ethics Committee Chairs Metadata at CL/NLP Conferences]] webpage, and disseminating this through ACL conference officer and directly to known Ethics Chairs.
* We were asked about '''Industrial Standards for Bias Mitigation''' by a recent past AEC member, but the details of this enquiry is currently stalled.


== Social Impact Award ==
== Social Impact Award ==
* AEC reached out to ACL* conference organizers to join the award committee for the social impact award. AEC members were actively involved in award selection for EACL 2026 and this is expected to continue for future conferences.


== ACL Ethics Committee Scope ==
The AEC reached out to ACL* conference organizers to join the award committees of their social impact awards. AEC members were actively involved in award selection for EACL '26, ACL '26, and have agreements for EMNLP '26. This is expected to continue for future conferences.
* The AEC provided recommendations on the licence agreement for the ARR reviewing corpus.
 
== AEC Logistics ==
 
We have legislated a clearer succession pattern for members and chairs, such that terms are shorter (to make it less onerous) and to stagger terms (so that the entire committee doesn't refresh at once and that there is overlap between senior members to mentor and set expectations for newly-onboarded members).

Latest revision as of 13:09, 19 June 2026

Prior Reports: ['26 Q1] ['25 Q1] ['24 Q1]

N.B.: This document is authored expressly for the purpose of informing the ACL Executive Board as required for the Quarter 3 2026 documentation. It is meant to be read by the ACL Executive Board and is also suitable for the ACL membership and the general public.


The content of this page is work-in-progress as of 19 Jun 2026.


Overview

The purview of the ACL Ethics Committee (AEC) is to define a set of guidelines and processes for dealing with ethical concerns, coordinate with the *ACL event ethics chairs on ethical reviewing, and coordinate the creation and dissemination of resources on ethics (Source: ACLWeb).

Ethics Tutorial, Education and Outreach

The ethics committee has continued to engage in sharing information about ethics and ethics policies with the community. Some of the main actions conducted include the following:

  • Submitted a tutorial proposal for EMNLP '26 (Budapest, Hungary) and AACL-IJCNLP (Hengqin, China).
  • Working with past members to propose a special issue on ethics to be hosted by Computational Linguistics. This proposal has been accepted and the call for papers has been recently disseminated.
  • Held a Birds-of-a-Feather session at EACL '26.
  • Held a call with the ACL Exec's interested and available membership to ask about their wishes for AEC's work. We were charged with the creation of guidelines for appropriate use of AI for research.
  • Updating the [Ethics Committee Chairs Metadata at CL/NLP Conferences] webpage, and disseminating this through ACL conference officer and directly to known Ethics Chairs.
  • We were asked about Industrial Standards for Bias Mitigation by a recent past AEC member, but the details of this enquiry is currently stalled.

Social Impact Award

The AEC reached out to ACL* conference organizers to join the award committees of their social impact awards. AEC members were actively involved in award selection for EACL '26, ACL '26, and have agreements for EMNLP '26. This is expected to continue for future conferences.

AEC Logistics

We have legislated a clearer succession pattern for members and chairs, such that terms are shorter (to make it less onerous) and to stagger terms (so that the entire committee doesn't refresh at once and that there is overlap between senior members to mentor and set expectations for newly-onboarded members).