SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 1 Ethics, Information Technology and Today’s Undergraduate Classroom Ethics and the Undergraduate 2008 UCLA

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Outline of Issues n iSchool context n Principles n Course design n Technology support n 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 n Codes of professional practice n Policies and contemporary issues n Behavioral motivation iSchools Michigan Principles Design Technology Questions Powers, “Real Wrongs in Virtual Communities,” “… 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) n ICIE: 104 scholars worldwide n US: 32 people; 30 universities n 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 iSchools iSchools Michigan Principles Design Technology Questions Strength of Ethics Course Content iSchoolSomeStrongTitled GradTitled UnderG Washington8410 Illinois330 2 Texas3300 IU SLIS9200 Pittsburgh5220 Penn State3200 Maryland2210 Michigan2210 UCLA220 1 IU Informatics710 1 North Carolina4110 Georgia Tech3100 Rutgers3100 Drexel2110 Syracuse2100 Toronto5000 Irvine2000 Florida State1000 UC Berkeley0000 Total

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Ethics Courses at Michigan n courses with ethics content n Campus-wide distribution n UM School of Information –1 graduate course – professional ethics and public policy issues n 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 n Flourishing ethics and human potential (Bynum) n Policy vacuums (Moor) n Decision making roles (Himma) n Digitization and representation (Capurro) n 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 Intersection iSchools Principles Design Technology Questions McRobb et al. “… pedagogy, ethics and technology,” Figure 1. The links between technology, pedagogy and ethics

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Enabling Factors n 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) n Research on learning n 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 n Use technology to explore the ethical challenges of the technology n Role playing to model the edges and seams of ethical behaviors in a variety of contexts n Create a learning laboratory n 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 n Honor code deconstruction n Identity in virtual environments –Trust in individuals and groups n Truth in image and text –Trust in content integrity n Open source and security –Trust in code iSchools Principles Design Technology Questions

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Technology R&D n Augmenting technology tools in the classroom n Synchronous and asynchronous learning environments n Tracking, recording, measuring, assessing community building, role playing, and changes in perspective iSchools Principles Design Technology Questions Sakai Foundation

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SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN More Questions than Answers n Should iSchools be more actively engaged with ethics scholarship? n Is the classroom an ethics lab? n Is focused coursework on ethics and information technology an important priority? n 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 n See iConference paper for complete citations. n Dennett, Daniel C. “Information, technology, and the virtues of ignorance,” Deadalus (Summer 1986), pp n McRobb, S., Jefferies, P., Stahl, B. C “Exploring the relationship between pedagogy, ethics and technology: building a framework for strategy development.” Technology, Pedagogy & Education 16, 1, n Powers, Thomas M. “Real wrongs in virtual communities,” Ethics and Information Technology 5 (2003): n Strauss, W. and Howe, N Millennials and pop culture. Great Falls, VA: Life Course Assoc.

SCHOOL OF INFORMATION UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Thank you! Paul Conway Associate Professor School of Information University of Michigan