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The term Information Ethics (IE) is rapidly changing by acquiring additional concepts and contexts and therefore may lack a universally accepted single definition and understanding. This paper explores the term using the most commonly co-occurring terms in the information ethics published literature as indexed in the Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Google Scholar and Web of Science database. Core/periphery analysis, co-occurrence of words as subject terms and social networks techniques are used through UCINET for windows, text STAT and Bibexcel computer-aided software to determine how best to define and understand IE. The study has identified the most commonly used terms to describe IE and the core terms with which IE can be defined. Information obtained from this study can inform LIS research and education (e.g. in IE content understanding and development) as well as in the development of IE taxonomy and definitions some of which applies to African understanding of IE.

Keywords: Information Ethics, Informetrics, Webometrics, Content analysis, Core/periphery model, Information science