The American Journal of Bioethics, a Penn-based publication, received the Best New Journal award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
More than 50 journals applied for this prestigious award that was announced Dec. 27.
According to the CELJ, entries must have been in publication for less than five years and must be a member of the organization to be eligible.
Awards were also given for Best Special Issue, Best Journal Design and Distinguished Editor and were distributed at a convention in San Diego.
AJOB's designation as Best New Journal will help bring it recognition within the scientific community and will "serve to attract readers who haven't already read the journal, for instance, people in the liberal arts community," said Executive Managing Editor Kelly Carroll, who accepted the award in San Diego.
The journal "covers critical issues from a wide range of biomedical sciences and is cited frequently in the peer-reviewed literature," said the CELJ, as quoted in a University press release.
Carroll added, "We want to be a journal that is read and recognized by a wide audience" because bioethics is a topic that involves aspects from a multitude of fields, ranging from law to religion to medicine to philosophy.
Carroll attributes the recognition and rapid growth of the journal to its "strong online presence."
The online version of the journal provides supplemental information and contains additional articles, a bioethics job search medium and general information on bioethics.
The journal organizes its contents in a nontraditional manner known as the "peer review format."
In this format, each of the quarterly issues contains "two long target articles," which provide a medium of discussion. Various scholars from around the country then are invited to submit short commentaries for publication in the same issue.
In this way, multiple opinions and controversial subjects are discussed and many perspectives are expressed.
Since its inception in 2001, AJOB, which was originally an online resource founded in the mid-'90s as a bioethics resource, has been the fastest growing journal published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, Carroll said.
AJOB was founded by Glenn McGee, a professor in the Department of Medical Ethics, and David Magnus, a former Penn faculty member who has since become a member of the Department of Bioethics at Stanford University.
