Adaptive Technology table of contents

• Equity & Access to Computing Resources
• Equity of Access: Adaptive Technology
• Center for Adaptive Technology at SCSU

Equity & Access to Computing Resources

A monograph concerning individuals with special needs and their right to fair and equal access to information via computer.

Editor’s Introduction

The National Conference on Computing and Values (NCCV) was held on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University in August 1991. The Conference included six “tracks”: Teaching Computing and Human Values, Computer Privacy and Confidentiality, Computer Security and Crime, Ownership of Software and Intellectual Property, Equity and Access to Computing Resources, and Policy Issues in the Campus Computing Environment. Each track included a major address, three to five commentaries, some small “working groups,” and a packet of relevant readings (the “Track Pack”). A variety of supplemental “enrichment events” were also included.
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A monograph on the right to privacy from the National Conference on Computing and Values (NCCV), held on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University in August 1991.

Table of contents of Computing & Privacy

• Editor’s Introduction
• Three “Levels of Computer Ethics
• Contemporary Privacy Issues
• Information as a Commodity: Control and benefit are Morally Owed to the Source
• Comments on Willis Ware’s “Contemporary Privacy Issues”
• A Rationale for the Proposed Revision of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Code of Professional Conduct
• Appendix: ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
• Facing the Computer Ethics Dilemma
• Appendix: Codes of Ethics of Various Organizations
• Track Report: Computer Privacy and Confidentiality

Editor’s Introduction

The National Conference on Computing and Values (NCCV) was held on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University in August 1991. The Conference included six “tracks”: Teaching Computing and Human Values, Computer Privacy and Confidentiality, Computer Security and Crime, Ownership of Software and Intellectual Property, Equity and Access to Computing Resourcesand Policy Issues in the Campus Computing Environment. Each track included a major address, three to five commentaries, some small “working groups,” and a packet of relevant readings (the “Track Pack”). A variety of supplemental “enrichment events” were also included.
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Is unauthorized copying of software theft?

Intellectual Property table of contents

• Software Ownership and Natural Rights
• Software Ownership and Intellectual Property Rights

Software Ownership and Natural Rights

Richard Volkman

Abstract The moral force of the prohibition against uncompensated copying and use of software is traced to a natural right to the product of one’s labor, as this is guaranteed by one’s right to life. Important implications of this view for the ideological debate among proponents of “free software” or “open source” are explored.
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What is the cultural and historical significance of information technology?

On the Emerging Global Information Ethics table of contents

• Anonymity on the Internet and Ethical Accountability
• Ethics in the Information Age
• The Computer Revolution and Global Ethics

Anonymity on the Internet and Ethical Accountability

Terrell Ward Bynum

[This brief position paper summarizes a presentation by the author at the Conference on Anonymity on the Internet organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in autumn 1997 (funded by the National Science Foundation).]

In 1994 Helen Nissenbaum published an article in Communications of the ACM entitled “Computing and Accountability.” In that article Nissenbaum spelled out important relationships among the concepts of responsibility, blame, and accountability. She also made a strong case for the view that accountability “encourages diligent, responsible practices” and provides “the foundation for just punishment as well as compensation for victims.” Nissenbaum noted:

Responsibility and blameworthiness are only a part of what is covered when we apply the robust and intuitive notion of accountability…. When we say someone is accountable for a harm, we may also mean that he or she is liable to punishment (e.g., must pay a fine, be censured by a professional organization, go to jail), or is liable to compensate a victim (usually by paying damages). In most actual cases these different strands of responsibility, censure, and compensation converge because those who are to blame for harms are usually those who must “pay” in some way or other for them.

In that same article, Nissenbaum identified four “barriers to accountability” associated with current computing practices. These include (1) the problem of “many hands” in which a wide variety of individuals and institutions can be involved in the design and creation of a computer system, (2) the ease with which people accept so-called “bugs” in a computer program as unavoidable, (3) the tendency to treat computers as “scapegoats” for a variety of errors, and (4) the desire to own a computer program without accepting liability for it.
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How can we work to make computing technology advance human values? One way is to teach “computer ethics” to the public at large and to our students enrolled in courses in computing and information sciences. But what is computer ethics?

The term “computer ethics” was coined in the mid 1970s by Walter Maner to refer to that field of applied professional ethics dealing with ethical problems aggravated, transformed or created by computer technology. By analogy with the more developed field of medical ethics, Maner focussed attention upon applications of ethical theories and decision procedures used by philosophers doing applied ethics. He distinguished “computer ethics” from sociology of computing and from technology assessment.

For nearly two decades, the term “computer ethics” kept this focussed meaning. Recently, however, the term “computer ethics” has acquired a broader sense that includes applied ethics, sociology of computing, technology assessment, computer law, and related fields. This broader kind of computer ethics examines the impact of computing and information technology upon human values, using concepts, theories and procedures from philosophy, sociology, law, psychology, and so on. Practitioners of the broader computer ethics – whether they are philosophers, computer scientists, social scientists, public policy makers, or whatever – all have the same goal:

• To integrate computing technology and human values in such a way that the technology advances and protects human values, rather than doing damage to them.

Donn Parker pursues this goal by gathering example cases and presenting scenarios for discussion. Judith Perrolle does it by applying sociological theories and tools to data about computing; Sherry Turkle does it by applying psychological theories and tools; James Moor, Deborah Johnson and others do it by applying philosophical theories and tools; and so on. All of these thinkers and many others address problems about computing technology and human values, seeking to

1. Understand the impact of computing technology upon human values
2. Minimize the damage that such technology can do to human values, and
3. Identify ways to use computer technology to advance human values.

Teaching Computer Ethics table of contents

• Introduction
• What is Computer Ethics
• Computer Ethics in the Computer Science Curriculum
• Integrating Computer Ethics into the Computer Science Curriculum
• A “Capstone” Course in Computer Ethics?
• Non-Apologetic Computer Ethics Education
• Realities of Teaching Social and Ethical Issues in Computing
• The Use and Abuse of Computer Ethics
• Courting Culture in Computer Science
• Appendix

Introduction

– Edited by Terrell Ward Bynum, Walter Maner and John L. Fodor

The National Conference on Computing and Values (NCCV) was held on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University in August 1991. The Conference included six “tracks”: Teaching Computing and Human Values, Computer Privacy and Confidentiality, Computer Security and Crime, Ownership of Software and Intellectual Property, Equity and Access to Computing Resources, and Policy Issues in the Campus Computing Environment. Each track included a major address, three to five commentaries, some small “working groups,” and a packet of relevant readings (the “Track Pack”).

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