school of information university of michigan 1 ethics, information technology and today’s...
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SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
1
Ethics, Information Technology
and Today’s Undergraduate
Classroom Ethics and the Undergraduate
2008 iConference @ UCLA
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Outline of Issues
iSchool context Principles Course design Technology support Questions
Outline
“We may have to make an unpalatable choice between lives that are morally good,
and lives that are interesting.”D. Dennett, “Information, technology and the virtues of ignorance,”
1986.
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Ethics – definitional variations
Codes of professional practice Policies and contemporary issues Behavioral motivation
iSchools
Michigan
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
•Powers, “Real Wrongs in Virtual Communities,” 2003.
“… moral theory is the body of competing accounts of the right- or wrong- making qualities of actions and the general nature of obligation.”
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Ethics in the iSchools
The study of ethics is international and interdisciplinary, with diverse publishing outlets (12 peer reviewed journals)
ICIE: 104 scholars worldwide US: 32 people; 30 universities iSchools: 8 faculty in 6 iSchools
iSchools
Michigan
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
•International Center for Information Ethics
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Ethics Courses in the iSchoolsiSchools
Michigan
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
Strength of Ethics Course Content
iSchool Some Strong Titled Grad Titled UnderG
Washington 8 4 1 0
Illinois 3 3 0 2Texas 3 3 0 0
IU SLIS 9 2 0 0
Pittsburgh 5 2 2 0
Penn State 3 2 0 0
Maryland 2 2 1 0
Michigan 2 2 1 0
UCLA 2 2 0 1
IU Informatics 7 1 0 1North Carolina 4 1 1 0
Georgia Tech 3 1 0 0
Rutgers 3 1 0 0
Drexel 2 1 1 0
Syracuse 2 1 0 0
Toronto 5 0 0 0
Irvine 2 0 0 0
Florida State 1 0 0 0
UC Berkeley 0 0 0 0
Total 66 28 7 4
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Ethics Courses at Michigan
300 + courses with ethics content Campus-wide distribution UM School of Information
– 1 graduate course – professional ethics and public policy issues
Undergraduate informatics initiative places ethics in the core requirements
iSchools
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
• Ethics in Public Life Initiative
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Guiding Principles
Flourishing ethics and human potential (Bynum)
Policy vacuums (Moor) Decision making roles (Himma) Digitization and representation (Capurro) Infosphere and entropy (Floridi)
iSchools
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
“Information technology has multiplied our opportunities to know, and our traditional ethical doctrines overwhelm us
by turning these opportunities into newfound obligations to know.”Dennett, 1986.
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Ethics at the IntersectioniSchools
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
• McRobb et al. “… pedagogy, ethics and technology,” 2007.
Figure 1. The links between technology, pedagogy and ethics
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Enabling Factors
Net Generation – stereotypes and reality– Sheltered, protected, pressured, special,
confident, and optimistic (Strauss and Howe)
– New and different expectations regarding the use of technology (Gibbons)
– Enmeshed in a web of technical choices (Nye)
Research on learning Technology infrastructure on campus
iSchools
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
• Strauss and Howe, Millennials and pop culture, 2006.
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Course Design Principles
Use technology to explore the ethical challenges of the technology
Role playing to model the edges and seams of ethical behaviors in a variety of contexts
Create a learning laboratory Integrate assessment and research on
inter-generational ethical tensions
iSchools
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Modular Course Design
Team teaching and flexibility to scale Honor code deconstruction Identity in virtual environments
– Trust in individuals and groups Truth in image and text
– Trust in content integrity Open source and security
– Trust in code
iSchools
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Technology R&D
Augmenting technology tools in the classroom
Synchronous and asynchronous learning environments
Tracking, recording, measuring, assessing community building, role playing, and changes in perspective
iSchools
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
• Sakai Foundation
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
More Questions than Answers
Should iSchools be more actively engaged with ethics scholarship?
Is the classroom an ethics lab? Is focused coursework on ethics and
information technology an important priority?
To what extent is ethics education at the undergraduate level directive or exploratory?
iSchools
Principles
Design
Technology
Questions
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
References See iConference paper for complete citations. Dennett, Daniel C. “Information, technology, and the virtues
of ignorance,” Deadalus 115.3 (Summer 1986), pp. 135-153. McRobb, S., Jefferies, P., Stahl, B. C. 2007. “Exploring the
relationship between pedagogy, ethics and technology: building a framework for strategy development.” Technology, Pedagogy & Education 16, 1, 111-126.
Powers, Thomas M. “Real wrongs in virtual communities,” Ethics and Information Technology 5 (2003): 191-98.
Strauss, W. and Howe, N. 2006. Millennials and pop culture. Great Falls, VA: Life Course Assoc.
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Thank you!
Paul ConwayAssociate ProfessorSchool of InformationUniversity of [email protected]