John M. Artz is an associate professor of information systems in the School of Business at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. He teaches technical courses in relational databases, data warehousing, web-based systems development, and various programming languages. He teaches philosophical courses in the ethics of technology and the philosophy of science as it applies to business research. Historically, his research interests were in the philosophical foundations of information systems; philosophical issues in relational database and data warehouse design; and the philosophy of science as it applies to information systems research. Artz has written nearly four dozen scholarly articles on a wide variety of topics including philosophical issues in database design, and the epistemological role of stories in the ethics of technology. In addition, he has published over 100 book and article reviews in ACM Computing Reviews. Artz has a wide variety of interests that focus, generally, on making sense out of emerging information technologies, such as virtual worlds, video games, and, most recently, big data, bringing both technical and philosophical expertise to bear on these new phenomena.

Artz joined the faculty of the School of Business and Public Management in the Fall of 1992. He was promoted to associate professor in 1998. During his time at GWU, in addition to his teaching and research responsibilities, Artz has served on the Faculty Senate from 2005 to the present; as the program director of the Master of Science in Information Technology program from Fall 1999 to Fall 2003; as the webmaster for the School of Business and Public Management from Fall 1996 to Fall 2000; and on the Faculty Advisory Committee for the University Teaching Center from Fall 1993 to Fall 1996. In addition to these major commitments, Artz has participated in a wide variety of lesser service roles too numerous to mention.

Prior to moving into academia, he spent nearly 20 years in the corporate world including The MITRE Corporation, Arbitron Ratings, Southwest Research Institute, General Electric Information Systems, American Management Systems, and Washington Gas Light Company. While serving in industry, Artz took on a variety of roles primarily related to database development and administration and software development. He has industry expertise in relational databases (serving several times as DBA), enterprise networks, expert systems, and graphical user interfaces. He holds a patent (#5,025,382 - Data link Controller Interface) on a direct manipulation user interface for air traffic controllers in a digital communications environment. In addition, he has done professional software development in nearly a dozen different programming languages including Fortran, COBOL, PL/1, Pascal, C, C++, Prolog, Lisp, and Visual Basic.