AUTHOR
Ian Stoodley and Christine Bruce

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to represent the conceptual world of IT professionals with respect to ethics and asserts that the most effective means of influencing their ethical behaviour rests in influencing professionals’ conceptions of their discipline and practice. Such influence is possible, through facilitating their encounter with alterative points of view. In this way, IT professionals’ understanding of their practice may be influenced to increasingly benefit others.

A change of professionals’ conception of the scope of IT and the possible ways of experiencing IT professional practice will engender a change in their ways of inhabiting their professional world. This will result in professionals living out an internally re-configured view of their practice – a change of behaviour which flows from a change of conception.

The traditional techno-centric conception of IT leaves user needs and social factors largely unexplored (Alter, 2003; Finkelstein & Hafner, 2002; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001). This shapes IT experts’ and practitioners’ expectations of professional ethical practice. In contrast, proposed here is an expanded conceptualisation of IT, which brings others into focus. A Model of Ethical IT Professional Practice represents these views of IT in a conceptual map, along three continuums of:

1. Artefact Developer to Artefact User;
2. Technology to Information; and
3. Citizenship of My World to Citizenship of the Wider World.

Such a map may be used on an individual, group, organisational, professional or discipline level to reconceptualise the IT professional space, to guide future planning, to underpin ethical training and support, and to inspire ethical conduct.

The model builds on trends previously identified through empirical research, which found some IT researchers privileging end users over artefact developers and emphasising the information accessed rather than the enabling technology (Bruce, Pham, & Stoodley, 2004; Pham, Bruce, & Stoodley, 2005; Stoodley, 2007). From an ethical point of view, we suggest that a trend towards the consideration of end users and their information needs is a step in the right direction, however it needs to be underpinned and extended. This extension is indicated in further empirical research which shows some professionals reaching out beyond the technology and the client, to humanity (Stoodley, 2008).

The ethical responsibilities of IT professionals are represented in the model presented here, along a continuum from a self-focussed to a humanity-focussed view. IT professionals thus see themselves as citizens of distinct, though related, worlds. (‘Citizenship’ here represents professionals’ choice to make their home in the ethical terrain, where they enjoy certain rights and accept certain responsibilities.) Five citizenships serve to symbolize these worlds:

• citizenship of my world;
• citizenship of the corporate world;
• citizenship of a shared world;
• citizenship of the client’s world; and
• citizenship of the wider world.

The respective rights and responsibilities associated with these citizenships progressively focus away from the individual professional and towards third parties. The more ethically mature a professional is, the more of these citizenships will be represented in their portfolio.

A professional development course is suggested using this model. Such a course introduces participants to expanding horizons of responsibility, from their own world to the wider world. Supporting this approach is the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, who focussed on relationships of responsibility to others as the essence of ethics (Levinas, 1998), and the philosophy of Darryl Koehn, who argued that a relationship based on promise-making and trust is the only defensible ground of professional ethics (Koehn, 1994). Thus, ethics is seen as an increasingly other-centred attitude.

Following the educational Variation Theory (Marton & Booth, 1997), ethical formation for IT professionals would seek to introduce them to the full range of citizenships. This would serve to open their understanding of what it means to be an ethical IT professional to new vistas, influencing their conception of their professional practice. Activities which would engender such illumination include:

• self-assessment of their practice against the citizenships;
• examination of case studies of IT professionals representing the range of citizenships;
• involvement in practical projects which expose them to the range of citizenships;
• group discussion of the citizenships; and
• journaling of personal engagement with the citizenships.

AUTHOR
Paul Sollie

ABSTRACT

During a Department of Defence news briefing in February 2002, Donald Rumsfeld was confronted with the question concerning reports that stated that there was no evidence of a direct link between Iraq and some terrorist organisations. He subsequently answered:

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”

(Donald Rumsfeld, Department of Defence News Briefing, 12 February 2002, transcript of interview at: http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2636)

This comment was received with a chuckle by many, but Rumsfeld’s now famous reply carries a lot of truth. Many decisions in whatever sphere of life take place under conditions of risk and uncertainty, the known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Modern, complex technology development is a paradigm case of this category. Complex technology developments, like that of nanotechnology, virtual communities, or synthetic biology, confront us with dilemmatic problems. On the one hand, technology developments aim at making life more comfortable, less of a hardship, at increasing health and income, and the like. (Examples: heart-lung machine, Internet/CMC, automotive industry, etc.) On the other hand, modern technology developments are too a large extent indeterminate and problematic. Hence, we should be looking beyond technology. Due to aspects such as complexity and multistability, technologies often cause unanticipated and unforeseen problems (Examples: plastics, asbestos, property rights, CO2-emissions, global warming, etc.). If we take uncertainty of technology developments seriously, and I think we should, then this requires some critical reflection.

Hence, in this paper, which follows previous work , I will take up the issue of ‘Rumsfeldian unknowns’ by investigating uncertainty and the uniqueness debate in relation to the ethical assessment of technology development. Uncertainty, which is to be distinguished from risk because it does not allow for probabilistic analyses, is central to modern technology development. From an ethical perspective it is not only interesting but also necessary to evaluate new technology developments, because technologies might yield adverse and detrimental effects for human beings and the environment that are beyond control or prediction. One of the aims of ethics is concerned with applying criteria or principles to assess persons, situations, or, in casu, technology development. Contrary to other fields of ethical assessment, it is however often argued that the ethical assessment of technology development stands out as unique as it is complicated by the characteristics of modern technologies and factors such as complexity, risk, and uncertainty. The idea the technology and its ethical assessment is unique in some theoretical sense is coined the uniqueness thesis. For instance in Hans Jonas and Walter Maner characteristics of modern, complex technologies are presented that have led people to argue that these technologies pose unique problems. With Deborah Johnson I agree that we should distinguish between unique technologies and unique ethical issues. Whereas many modern technologies might be called unique, the challenging thesis is whether modern technologies pose unique ethical issues. Some scholars have argued for the uniqueness of ethical issues, which entails that the ethical assessment of modern technologies is at odds with traditional ethical theories and requires entirely new theories. I will, however, delineate that the complexity and uncertainty is not so much a problem of deficient or inadequate ethical theories as it is a problem of human beings (e.g. not being omniscient) and the nature of the situation (e.g. inherent uncertainty of natural processes or unpredictability of human behaviour). What is more, the same principles still apply, regardless of uncertainty! Instead of directing our attention to the discovery of new theories or approaches, we should focus on uncertainty, conceptualise it and take the results as input for further reflection on the ethical assessment of uncertain technology development. I will demonstrate that, by taking uncertainty seriously, we can find legitimate ways of dealing with uncertainty in technology development.

I will, first, argue that both pure substantive ethical theories and pure procedural ethical theories are inadequate for the ethical assessment of technology development that is surrounded by uncertainty. Pure substantive approaches do not suffice since they require information, which is lacking due to uncertainty, to arrive at moral judgments with regard to the situation under scrutiny. Pure procedural ethics can only say something about the structure of debate and not about the substance. It is not able to make moral judgments by guidance of moral principles based on the substance of the subject matter. This is a major deficit in procedural approaches and therefore I contend that we should strive for a substantive theory that is able to justifiably include a procedural approach. Second, I will show that such an account (and arguably the only) is offered in Gewirthian ethics. In Reason and Morality (1978) Gewirth propounds a rational justification for a supreme moral principle, which he coins the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC): ‘Act in accord with the generic rights of your recipients as well as of yourself.’ I will show that the PGC does not fall prey to the described inadequacies, but rather entails such a required procedural turn by definition as it justifiably accounts for both substantive (direct) and procedural (indirect) applications. Hence, it will be concluded that the PGC is a legitimate principle for dealing with uncertainty in the ethical assessment of technology development.

AUTHOR
Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva, Simon Rogerson and Bernd Stahl

ABSTRACT

Through the analysis of mankind history we conclude that technology and society can be waved in a feedback model, as Toffler (1980) describes. Afterword, ICT revolution introduces a new complex world of distributed, interactive and collaborative systems engaging organizations. In that sense, the educational environment is an example not only because, it promotes technological innovation as itself, but also as a user of that innovation.

Regarding the case of e-learning, through literature acknowledge it is possible to underpin several definitions. Typically it is related with creation, delivery, and management of learning using Internet tools and technology as posted by Martin and Webb (1999) or; “nothing more than the use of electronic tools and technologies to assist us in our teaching and learning” (Stahl, 2005).

Through out the analysis of such literature we may state that high quality e-learning material engages (Turban, 2006):

• high levels of interactivity;
• vivid simulations;
• video and/or audio;
• community based: with access to tutors or fellow e-learners;
• eliminating barriers of time, distance, and socioeconomic status.

However, assuming that such technological perspective of future educational process is enough, is condemned such technology to a failure. In fact, ethical and cultural issues bias may incorporate the answer to unsuccessful e-learning realities. In that sense, the aim of this paper is to report the lessons engaged by the empirical enquiry regarding Lusíada Universities organizational setting, and its e-learning project.

To obtain plausible results regarding the quoted research, we are induced by the following research questions:

• what is e-learning implementation at a University setting?
• what is the impact of culture on the implementation of e-universities?
• what is the impact of Ethics on the implementation of e-universities?
• what is the link of cultural, ethical and e-learning issues at e-University setting?

Given the research questions, the next and natural step is to underline the concept of culture and ethics. Culture embraces national and organizational perspectives. We may state that “national” culture is what distinguishes the character of a society. In that sense, it is important to note that the cultural boundaries between nations became increasingly interesting, and there may be significant cultural differences within countries (Hofstede, 1986), which is relevant interest in the case of Lusíada Universities in Portugal and Angola.

On the other hand, ethics has to be seen in a social context. Such perspective induces us to make an individual choice about which principles to follow as a requirement of fairness or justice. Ethical principles can be conceptualized here as general guidelines, ideals, or expectations that need to be taken into account, along with other relevant conditions and circumstances, in the design and analysis of electronic university in the proposed specific contexts. Therefore, ethics need a unifying principal, according to Moor (1999, p66) in “just consequentialism”, that would protect rights through an impartiality test, and then increase benefits to promote human flourishing. This consequentialism often has Aristotelic fundamental conceptions, and justifies how different conceptions of education may impact the Good Life.

To conclude, we may affirm that the ethical and cultural impacts can emerge trough the development and implementation process of an e-learning technology (Rogerson, 2004) and computer ethics (Moor, 1985) arise. Computer ethics might be understood very narrowly as the efforts of professional philosophers to apply traditional ethical theories like utilitarianism, Kantianism, or virtue ethics to issues regarding the use of computer technology. Regarding specifically the use of ICT on education, Stahl (2002) identified some moral problems (power, privacy, monitoring, surveillance, access, opportunity cost, and awareness) that should be considered to allow the identification of relevant issues in particular contexts of this paper, in three levels:

• macro level: what is the purpose of education?;
• meso-level: what is the purpose of organisation? (Kant vs Cultural Relativism!);
• micro-level: do I agree with the organisation’s definitions?.

Afterwards it is explored what can be common between culture, ethics and e-Learning, in fact, a few existing literature can help on this meaning. Computer ethics requires us to think about the new nature of computer technology and our values. The term “e-Values of learning” will be suggested, promoting them we can expect the needs of e-learning, but what are e-Values?. Must be values associated to the electronic technology, regarding the role of university in society (Brey, 2004).

An initial proposed methodology based on a qualitative approach was tested. Such methodology implied empirical work done on pilot case studies, which embraced data collection through interviews, field notes, documents, participant observations and some historical stories. To agglutinate this research, action research and case studies configure the best practice, policy development and theory creation in order to help solving practical problems. The empirical result that emerged from the interpretative analysis of the data collected, in accordance to Walsham (1995), is a consequence of the iterative process between field data and theoretical model evolved over time, which will be stated in the final version of the paper.

Such paper will also distinguish three technical phases for the analysis of project implementation (Technological Infrastructures and Services, Knowledge/Content Management, and Computer Mediated Communication), and one top phase linking strategic issues. Each phase could represent the progress of project and could be analysed in accordance to the following figure:

As a final remark, we should state that the e-learning project in Lusíada Universities is under revaluation. Such revaluation will engage a new plan that will be submitted to Top Management (Administrative Council), and stakeholders (including the commercial suppliers). Regarding the status quo and future needs to highlight a new strategy, namely including ethical and cultural issues, will be frame worked in this paper.

However, an interesting finding is that e-learning emerged as a key reference on Lusíada Universities; however despite this revealed strategic interest, the practical implementation is still under development, and with diverse intermediate results. For that, we will present a comparative analysis for each case study and comments regarding each case study, as well as, the chosen methodology will be welcome.

REFERENCES

Afonso, Ana P. (2002). E-Learning in Portugal (in Portuguese E-Learning em Portugal). Education Technology & Society 5(2), 172-174.

Amaral L. and Leal D. (2004). From Classroom Teaching to e-Learning: the way for a strong definition. Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal.

Anderson, T. (2004). Towards a theory of online learning. Theory and practice of online learning, A. University: pp. 33-60.

Arias-Oliva, et al.(2004),”University Challenges in Information Society”, ETHICOMP 2004, pp. 38 -49.

Brey, Philip (2004). “Ethical Issues for the Virtual University.” Ethicomp2004, pp. 170-188.

Brown, A.D.(1998) Organisational culture. 2nd ed. London : Financial Times Pitman Publishing .

Cameron, K.S., & Quinn, R.E. (1999). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework. Reading, MA: Addinson-Wesly.

Conole, G. (2004). E-Learning: The Hype and the Reality. Journal of Interactive Media in Education , Special Issue (12).

Hofstede, Geert (1986) “Cultural differences in Teaching and Learning” IJIR 301-320.

Martin, Elaine and Webb, David (2001), “Is e-learning good learning?”, E-learning, Ethics and Equity Conference at Victoria University, April 20th, 2001, pp. 49-60.

McRobb S., Jefferies P., Stahl, B. (2007). “Exploring the Relationships between Pedagogy, Ethics &Technology: building a framework for strategy development”. Technology, Pedagogy & Education (16:1), pp 111-126.

Moor, J. (1985). What is Computer Ethics? Metaphilosophy, 16, pp. 266-275.

Moor, J. (1999). “Just consequentialism and Computing”. Ethics and Information Technology, (1:1), pp 65-69.

Nagi, K. (2006) “Solving Ethical Issues in E-learning” in Third International Conference on E-learning for Knowledge-Based Society.

Rogerson, S. (2004). “The Ethics of Software Development Project Management”. In Bynum, Terrell W. and Rogerson, S. (2004). Computer ethics and professional responsibility [edited by]. Oxford : Blackwell.

Stahl, Bernd Carsten (2002b). “Ethical Issues in E-Teaching – a Theoretical Framework” In: King, G. et al. (eds.) (2002): Proceedings of INSPIRE VII, Quality in Learning and Delivery Techniques, Limerick, Ireland, 25-27.03.2002: The British Computer Society: pp. 135 – 148.

Stahl, Bernd Carsten (2003): “Cultural Universality versus Particularity in CMC” In: Proceedings of the Ninth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Tampa, 04 to 06 August 2003, pp. 1018 – 1026 .

Stahl, B. (2004). “E-Teaching – the Economic Threat to the Ethical Legitimacy of Education?”. In: Journal of Information Systems Education (15:2), pp. 155 – 162.

Stahl, B. (2005). “E-voting: an Example of Collaborative E-teaching and E-learning”. In: Journal of Interactive Technology & Smart Education (2:1), pp. 19-30.

Toffler, A. (1980). The Third Wave. William Morrow and Company, Inc. New York.

Turban, E., King, D., Lee, J., Veihland, D. (2006). Electronic commerce: a managerial perspective. (eds.) Pearson Prentice Hall.

Walsham, G. (1995) “Interpretive case studies in IS research: nature and method.” European Journal of Information Systems, (4:2), pp. 74-81.

Weaver, P. (2002). “Preventing E-Learning Failure.” Training and Developmnet (56:8), pp 45-50.

AUTHOR
Nidhi Sharma, Shalini Kesar and Diane Milne

ABSTRACT

As part of the Scottish Executive’s strategy to motivate low-income parents to re-enter labour market, in 2004, 10 projects “Working for Families Projects (WfFP)” were initiated. The principal aim of which is to encourage unemployed parents by providing extra support and guidance to families who wanted to seek either employment or training/education for employment purposes. This paper reflects on the findings of the study conducted on the WfFP that focused on women in ethnic minority in particular. The main goal of the WfFP for ethnic minority is to provide a holistic support and resources such as child care, Information, Communications and Technologies (ICT) training/learning skills, information about Community crèches.

AUTHOR
Anne Rogerson

ABSTRACT

Introduction

There can be no doubt that technological developments have revolutionised both learning and communication in the last two decades. Mobile phones and the Internet mean we are no longer dependent on either geographical location or time in order to communicate with our peers and colleagues. Such barriers are a thing of the past and these developments are to be heralded as a means of opening up gateways to improved communication and with that, hopefully, opportunities to develop learning. Information is readily available at the touch of the “search” button and we can share such information with whomsoever we choose – and there I believe is an underlying problem, which must be highlighted and addressed in an educational forum.

The very nature of ease of access can create problems for the vulnerable, especially the young. The use of social networking sites has the potential to create issues, for adolescents particularly, which impact on the individual, schools and ultimately on the educational process. My paper draws upon experience as headteacher of a secondary school in England, shared experiences with other colleagues, the lessons to be learned and suggestions for practices to be introduced in order that the negative effects of this powerful technology can be minimised, if not controlled. I submit below a skeleton of the format the paper would take.

Outline advantages of the technology, uses in schools

• Improved information sources, (coursework research, statistical data, Google world for maps)
• Encouraging active citizenship, (information about local services, volunteering opportunities, Youth Parliament)
• Creating a global community, (links with schools/colleges abroad, sharing technology/experiences/practice)

Outline potential disadvantages

• Access to inappropriate, potentially “corrupting” material
• Use of social networking sites
• Negative impact on social skills

It is on the latter that my paper is based. The use of such sites is not necessarily to be condemned for they can generate healthy discussions and help youngsters to formulate their opinions. However there is a darker side to the use of such sites. I believe this aspect needs to be examined on two fronts, namely when the participants are known to each other and secondly when they are not.

When correspondents know each other personally e.g. a group of friends in a tutor/class/year group; members of a youth/sports club

• Comments can be made which are speculative and unsubstantiated – sometimes about third parties not involved in the initial exchange. The public nature of the networking site can give such allegations credibility, especially if others then add to the observations/comments. This can potentially cause distress which is brought into school the next day, leading to problems/allegations within the school community.
• Such comments may lead the victim to feel isolated and is indeed a form of bullying. It is a particularly insidious form though. This is not the unkind note passed across the classroom to be intercepted by a teacher and dealt with at source. This is invasive, it is broadcast, it follows the child into his/her home, often into his/her own bedroom – and it must feel all pervasive to the young person. The impact this can have on a vulnerable adolescent is well documented

The second aspect occurs when the correspondent is not known, but a believable profile is created for the adolescent e.g. pre-pubescent girl believes she is “speaking” to a girl of similar age or boy believing he is in communication with a football enthusiast of contemporary age.

• May lead to inappropriate requests (possible use of web cams)
• May result in actual meetings based on the “trust” created by the networking site exchanges
• Can lead to abuse of the minor (physical, emotional or sexual)

The examples will have case study illustrations and analyses.

Dependence on such sites as a form of interaction can lead to a loss of, or indeed failure to develop, inter-personal social skills, based on visual (facial expressions/body language) and auditory signals (tone of voice, volume, pace of delivery), and upon which social communication is built in the real world. I would suggest that an over dependence on social networking sites impoverishes the users and potentially places them at a disadvantage in the real world; unless of course technological innovation will have such a radical impact that the parameters and norms of social intercourse as we understand them today will virtually disappear!

The way forward-what can be done and by whom?

• How can the risks be minimised?
• Who are the “socially responsible” to ensure that “living beyond technology” is a reality for potentially vulnerable adolescents?
• Examine the role of key players
  • Parents/carers What can be done in the home?
  • Schools/educational institutions What role for professional educators?
  • Social networking sites Is the provider to be held accountable?
  • Governments – a real issue

Conclusions

Over to you, the audience.