AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa, Nuno Miguel Araújo da Silva and Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva

ABSTRACT

Innovation traditionally was viewed as a linear process: from basic research to technology development and on to test/evaluation, demonstration, deployment, commercialization, and ultimately, market penetration. And perhaps, if successful, market saturation, obsolescence, and finally replacement. Human (and social) factors- needs, desires, demands, behavior- were considered either not at all or intuitively, anecdotally, coincidentally, mechanically, and often reactively. Innovation was driven, first, by hard science, engineering, and production, with marketing and sales trailing behind like army camp followers.

The primary challenge to promulgating a more human-centered approach to managing and accounting for innovation then is this:

• can we encourage innovation that adds net social value? That is, whose benefits clearly outweigh its costs?
• at the same time, can we deter- or at least not encourage- innovation that serves malicious ends or that poses grave threats to humanity?

In that sense, such challenge is clearly bounded to the field of bionanotechnology… But, how can we define bionanotechnology? Through out the literature review it is possible to acknowledge that is a combination of biotechnology and nanotechnology; however, it seem to us that such definition is clearly insufficient due to the nature of the possible ethical and moral dilemmas that can arise. In fact, even specialists from biotechnology and nanotechnology plead the thought that such combination of concepts does not reflect this new field of research, as the following definitions demonstrates…

The United Kingdom Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council defines bionanotechnology as a multi-disciplinary field that sits at the interface between engineering and the biological and physical sciences, while the OECD (2005), defines it as an area that covers the interface between physics, biology, chemistry and the engineering sciences.

The previous ideas impose a condition that incorporates two levels of analysis:

• what is biotechnology? Which are its applications? What ethical and moral dilemmas arise?
• what is nanotechnology? Which are its applications? What ethical and moral dilemmas arise?

Biotechnology can be broadly defined as using organisms or their products for commercial purposes. As such, (traditional) biotechnology has been practices since he beginning of records history. It has been used into food, crops or domestic animals; but, recent developments in molecular biology have given biotechnology a new meaning, a new prominence, and a new potential. It is (modern) biotechnology that has captured the attention of the public.

One example of modern biotechnology is genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is the process of transferring individual genes between organisms or modifying the genes in an organism to remove or add a desired trait or characteristic. It seems certain that a major focus of biotechnology over the next two decades will be on the area of pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics, or individualized medicine.

However, despite the political rhetoric and normative discourses that claim the prospective of such technology, due to immeasurable institutional inflexibility (insecure career paths, unfair evaluation, need of longer training), the truth is that the conventional wisdom concerning its benefits is not supported by systematic evidence and remains poorly understood (Weingart and Stehr, 2000; Bruce et al. 2004; Schild and Sorlin, 2005). Although since the 1990s there has been an outstanding output of new empirical studies to add to the more plentiful conceptual and normative approaches adopted in the past, there is a worrying lack of consensus even about how to measure cross-disciplinarity (Bordons, Morillo and Gómes, 2004). Another crucial aspect that still needs to be evaluated is the costs and risks of failure regarding its ethical and moral dilemmas.

On the other hand, nanotechnology is the creation of functional materials, devices, and systems through control of matter on the nanometer length scale and the exploitation of novel properties and phenomena developed at that scale (Bonsor, 2002). A scientific and technical revolution has begun that is based upon the ability to systematically organize and manipulate matter on the nanometer length scale.

Through out the literature it is possible to find several examples of nanotechnology applications: giant magnetoresistance in nanocrystalline materials, nanolayers with selective optical barriers, dispersions with optoelectronic properties, chemical and bio-detectors; advanced drug delivery systems (blood nanobots), chemical-mechanical polishing with nanoparticle slurries, new generation of lasers, nanostructured catalysts, and systems on a chip. Like the robots we use to build cars and the construction equipment we use to build skyscrapers, nanomachines will enable us to create a plethora of goods as well as to increase our engineering abilities to the limits of the physical world (Institute of Molecular Manufacturing, 2003).

Regarding the possible and moral dilemmas of such technology it is usual that philosophers, ethicists and many scientists frequently speak as such objects will exist in the very near future, but in fact they already exist which clearly creates a policy vacuum. In spite of such vision, some science fictions may help us cope the ethical and moral dilemmas that such technology embraces, like the novel of Michael Flynn, “The Nanotech Chronicles”. By masterly arranging six characters with different moral positions, for each of which we find almost convincing arguments, Flynn prompts his readers to reflect on moral issues and to solve moral conflicts.

In conclusion, the answers to obtain in this paper are: what is bionanotechnology? Which are its applications? What ethical and moral dilemmas arise? And, does the level of ethical and moral dilemmas engage the level of the two previous fields of research, is a sum of them, or imposes new challenges?

REFERENCES

BIO (2005). There´s more to biotechnology that scince and business. Washington: Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Bonsor, K. (2002). How nanotechnology will work. Available in the Internet: http://www.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology.htm?printable=1 (accessed 16 February 2008).

Bordons, M., Morillo, F. and Gómez, I. (2004). Analysis of cross-disciplinary research through bibliometric tools. In Moed, H., Glänzel, W. and Schmoch, U. (Eds.). Handbook of quantitative science and technology research, pp. 437-456. , Dordrecht: Kluwer.

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Schild, I. and Sörlin, S. (2005). Mer tvärvetenskap? (English: More interdisciplinarity?) In Sörlin, S. (Ed.). I den absoluta frontlinjen. En bok om forskningsstiftelserna, konkurrenskraften och politikens möjligheter, pp. 319-368. Bokförlaget Nya Doxa: Nora.

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Sweeney, A. E., Seal, S. and Vaidyanathan, P. (2003). The promises and perils of nanoscience and nanotechnology: Exploring emerging social and ethical issues, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 23, 4, pp. 236-245.

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Weckert, J. (2001). The Control of Scientific Research: The Case of Nanotechnology, Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics, 3, pp. 29-44.

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Wolfson, J.R. (2003). Social and Ethical Issues in Nanotechnology: Lessons from Biotechnology and Other High Technologies, Biotechnology Law Report, 22, 4, pp. 376-396.

AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa, Nuno Sotero Alves da Silva , Bernd Stahl, Mary Prior and Simon Rogerson

ABSTRACT

During the past three decades, technologies for educational purpose have been used to attempt to achieve better learning outcomes. Thirty years of educational research indicates that technology is effective in education. Many studies have been conducted to scrutinize interactive learning technologies in a multiplicity of forms ranging from the earliest days of mainframe-based computer to modern multimedia learning environments with accessibility via the Internet (Reeves, 1999).

There are two main valencies to using computers for educational purposes; that is, people can learn “from” or “with” technologies. When computer technologies are used to deliver preprogrammed instructional lessons, it is referred as “from” interactive technologies (Jonassen and Carr, 2000). In the paradigm of education from technologies, learners merely obtain knowledge through use of the technologies as a vehicle. They are mainly considered as forms of “media” that are conveyors of information. So, learners are unreservedly regarded as the recipients of encoded knowledge in assorted forms of instructional media (Jonassen and Reeves, 1996). In this approach, learners’ interaction with technologies is limited to inputting response and getting reply from them.

Learning “with” interactive technologies, considers interactive technologies as having an intellectual affiliation between the learners and the technologies. In other words, instead of using technologies to guide learners through prearranged interactions, learners may use technologies that function as “the mindful engagement of learners”. When students learn with computer technologies, instead of being restricted by them, they increase their thinking (Jonassen and Carr, 2000).

In that sense, we have the milestone that promotes the aim of this paper: in a virtual learning environment what is knowledge, and what is content? Such question may seem simplistic, however the answer entails into a philosophical discussion…

Dictionary definitions lend some beginning insight into these important concepts and their even more important distinctions. The first distinction is to engage the difference between data, information and knowledge; however, we may assume that “knowledge” is clearly linked with the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association, which engages a level of learning. In that sense, it is important to be able to distinguish, for ourselves, the one from the other? On the other hand, content is something contained in recipient or a language plan, which means in a communicative process we may recognize content. Considering that learning is essentially a human communicational process, in which point “pure” e-learning will deal with such reality? We oppose the idea that pedagogues plead, because they seem to concentrate their analytical focus on the learning process, without content, because they accused student of “watering down” real knowledge.

In a modest attempt at distinguishing the different conceptual levels, an iterative and recursive value-adding chain emerges: data + interpretation = information + cognitive appropriation = knowledge + collective representation and utilization = content (Budin, 2002).

And in an e-learning project, what can we define as knowledge management and content management? It is indeed a blurry distinction. Knowledge in an e-learning environment was introduced by Shulman in 1988; and Gudmundsdottir (1990), states that pedagogical content knowledge is the combination of subject matter knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, and this is what constitutes teaching expertise. In this way, “content” in pedagogical content refers to the organization of the subject matter.

In Shulman’s theoretical framework, teachers need to master two types of knowledge:

content, also known as “deep” knowledge of the subject itself;
knowledge of the curricular development.

Content knowledge encompasses what Bruner called the “structure of knowledge”- the theories, principles, and concepts of a particular discipline. Especially important is content knowledge that deals with the teaching process, including the most useful forms of representing and communicating content and how student’s best learn the specific concepts and topics of a subject. If beginning teachers are to be successful, they must wrestle simultaneously with issues of pedagogical content (or knowledge), as well as, general pedagogy (or generic teaching principles)” (Ornstein, Thomas and Lasley, 2000).

The contents, their format, localisation or type of support are the principal differences between traditional learning and e-learning (Anderson, 2004); in fact e-learning environments focus on content production, management and distribution, made with new tools and based on digital repositories. As example, the Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS) provide the foundation technology for creating, managing, reusing learning content across courses, curricula, and even supply chain, or the Digital Repositories Interoperability (DRI) that allows users to search, gather and expose various learning objects that are stored in repositories. The content could be developed for use in an exclusively e-learning environment, but the need for content standardisation (SCORM, AICC and IMS) must not be forgotten to the aims to reuse and share these contents, for free or commercial proposals.

The production of content and the transfer process of knowledge (Reis, 2005), knowledge as a process or knowledge as a product (Pawlowsky, 2001; Costa and Silva, 2007), are important factors to be considered in this paper, since the form of teaching will probably influence the content (Stahl, 2002). Of course, there are cultural considerations regarding the high quality of e-learning content aligned to the national curriculum design. Another possible issue arises regarding curriculum requirements… If a lecturer has preferences on verbal knowledge, communication and oral discussions, with little or minimal documentation, the contents must be created with respect to the context and the needs of the learning environment and the cultural environment. However, the pre-determination concerning design or selectively design may raise ethical issues, or else the lecturer may become an insignificant component in a pedagogical sense.

In conclusion, in an e-learning environment content management is really about moving documents through the entire process of drafting, approval and publishing, and knowledge management is not just the document itself, but how users are interacting with that document.

REFERENCES

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, Alberta University, pp. 33-60.

Bielawski, L and Metcalf, D. (2003). Blended eLearning: Integrating knowledge, Performance, and OnLine Learning. Amherst, HRD Press Inc.

Budin, G. (2002). Global content management-challenges and opportunities for creating and using digital translation resources. Repository of University of Viena.

Cecez-Kecmanovic, D. (2001). What enables and what prevents knowledge sharing via computer-mediated communications? Journal of Systems and Information Technology, 5, 1, pp 115-34.

Costa, G and Silva, N. (2007). “Knowledge management: how ethical is your organization’s knowledge?” ETHICOMP 07, Japan.

Galvez-Martin, M. (1997). “Reflection and Pedagogical Knowledge versus Social Studies Pedagogical Content Knowledge”. ACNCSS 97, Cincinatti.

Gudmundsdottir, S., (1990). Values and pedagogic content knowledge, Journal of Teacher Education, 41, 3, pp. 44-52.

Jefferies and Waterhouse (2000). Campus based managed learning environments: some of the issues. De Montfort University.

Jonassen, D., and Carr, C. (2000). Mindtools: Affording multiple knowledge representations for learning. In Lajoie, S. (Ed.), Computers as Cognitive Tools Vol 2: No More Walls, pp. 165-196. Mahwah: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.

Jonassen, D., and Reeves, T. (1996). Learning with technology: Using computers as cognitive tools. In D. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology, pp. 693-719. New York: Macmillan.

Ornstein, A., Thomas, J. and Lasley, I. (2000). Strategies for effective teaching. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Parker, M. (2003). E-Learning is a Social Tool for E-Commerce at Tertiary Intitutions. In Lubbe, S. (Ed), The Economic and Social Impacts of E-Commerce, pp. 154-183. Idea Group.

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Pawlowsky, P. (2001). The Treatment of Organizational Learning Science. In Dierkes, M. et al. (Eds.). Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge, pp. 61-88. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Reeves, T. (1999). A research agenda for interactive learning in the new millennium. Paper presented at the Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Seattle, Washington.

Reis, A. (2005) “The importance of Interactivity and Socialization in KTP – Knowledge Transfer Process”, DLC&W2005, Ustren.

Sarah, Rod and Haslett, Tim (2003) “A feedback model of knowledge-creation using conversation-based learning”. Monash University working paper.

Shulman, L. (1992). Ways of seeing, ways of knowing, ways of teaching, ways of learning about teaching. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 28, pp. 393-396.

Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15, 2, pp. 4-14.

Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57, 1, pp. 1-22.

Shulman, L. (1988). Disciplines of inquiry in education: An overview. In Jaeger, R. (Ed.). Complementary methods for research in education, pp. 3-17. Washington: AERA

Stahl, Bernd Carsten (2002). “Ethical Issues in E-Teaching – a Theoretical Framework” In: King, G. et al. (Eds.). Proceedings of INSPIRE VII, Quality in Learning and Delivery Techniques, Limerick.

Elbaz, F. (1991). Teachers’ Curricular Knowledge in Fourth Grade: The Interaction of Teachers, Children and Texts. Curriculum Inquiry, 21, 3, pp. 299-320.

AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa and Nuno Miguel Araújo da Silva

ABSTRACT

The Web 2.0 has become a buzzword that is used to illustrate a wide range of online activities and applications. In fact, Web 2.0 enhances tremendously the chance to detect and re-examine cognitive, social psychological and interpersonal communication models.

Moreover, cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to debate the following questions: do Web 2.0 create cognitive dissonance? In what extent? What are the consequences for younger people? And, does computer ethics may help?

AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa and Nuno Miguel Araújo da Silva

ABSTRACT

What began by being in a network for military ends during the Cold War and later to academic ends, the well known ARPANET, Internet rapidly changed from a venue used by a small number of scientists to a popular phenomenon affecting all aspects of life in industrialized nations.

Today, the Internet offers a much wider scope of tools used for information transmission and retrieval, communication and interaction (December, 1996). Plus, these technologies have formed the capacity to enhance synchronicity, asynchronicity and interactivity in computer mediated communication (Newhagen and Rafaeli, 1996; Weiser, 2001; Conde, Torres-Lana and Ruiz, 2002). In a study concerning the causal motivations to the use of the Internet (Weiser, 2001) it appeared two full-bodied scopes that absorb 50% of the variance: a relational and affiliative motivation (socio-affective regulation) and a functional and utilitarian motivation (acquisition of information). Other authors still defend a third reason: the entertainment.

In fact, that remarkable massification implied that scholars from diverse disciplines have taken an interest in trying to comprehend the Internet and Internet users. However, as a variety of researchers have noted, guidelines for ethical research on human subjects written before the Internet’s growth can be difficult to extend to research on Internet users (Eysenback and Till, 2001; Frankel and Siang, 1999; Reid, 1996; Waskul and Douglass, 1996).

In conclusion, Internet leads us to two levels of justification:

• it can be seen as a “tool” for research; and,
• it can be seen itself as the “research”.

In this paper, the aim is to understand the second level of justification, and moreover the behavioural divergence between kids and adults as Internet users, through a field study that paid attention to the ethical dimensions stated by Pimple (2002). In fact, we may claim that this paper is a following up of our previous work (Costa, 2005; Costa and Silva, 2007), and simultaneously makes an important contribution to an area where there is a lack of existing field studies, namely in Portugal, where only recently some studies were performed concerning behaviour in Multi User Domains (MUD´s).

A questionnaire, which Webster’s new collegiate dictionary (1990) defines as “a set of questions for submission to a number of persons to get data…” offers several important advantages over other methods or instruments for collecting data. Among them are the following ones:

the questionnaire tends to encourage frank answers and help to eliminate interviewer bias;
questionnaires are usually relatively inexpensive to administer and can be completed in the respondent’s own time.

Moreover, beside the questionnaire classification is important to address the types of questions. For that, we will follow the work of Macionis and Plummer (1998), considering multiple choice questions. At this point, the authors are processing and analysing the existent information in order to present in Ethicomp 2008 the quantitative and qualitative analysis that seem necessary.

The enounced study was conducted in Portugal, more precisely in Caldas da Rainha, through a field questionnaire done into College Queen D. Leonor in December 2007. Such institution has more than 1100 students, whose ages are between 9 and 18 years old (5th and 12th school year). Our questionnaire entails into a sample value of 25% regarding the student’s universe. However, as we stated previously this paper aims also to debate adult knowledge level concerning the Internet and how their kids use it, and for that, it was necessary to conduct a questionnaire also to their parents.

Finally, we should refer that the questionnaires had three dimensions of answers:

• concerning internet access;
• action’s analysis;
• behavioural analysis.

The following and natural step of this abstract is to present some of the questions concerning each dimension, starting by kids and then introducing adult’s questions…

Kids:

• On a holiday day, how much of your leisure time do you spend in the Internet?;
• How much of the information on the internet do you think you can trust?;
• If you want to get in touch with a friend, which one of these would you use?;
• Imagine you were entering a competition, what information about yourself would you give to be able to win a prize on the internet?;
• While on the internet what information have you ever given to another person that you have not met face to face?;
• How often do you disobey to the time for online use imposes by your parents?;
• How often do you prefer to spend time online rather than with the rest of your family?;
• How often do you seem withdrawn from others since discovering the internet?;
• How often do you seem preoccupied with being back online when offline?;
• How often do you feel unhappy when you are offline?

Adults:

• What is your literacy level?;
• Who is the best at using the internet at home?;
• Do you do any of these things on the internet?;
• Do you know if your child performs any of these things?;
• When your child is on the internet, are there any things he/she is not allowed to do?;
• On the computer your child uses at home, are any of these sites or activities blocked or filtered?;
• How often does your child form new relationships with online users?;
• How often does your child become defensive or secretive when asked what he or she does online?;
• How often does your child seem preoccupied with being back online when offline?;
• How often does your child become angry or belligerent when you place time limits on how much time he or she is allowed to spend online?
• How often does your child feel depressed, moody, or nervous when offline which seems to goes away once back online?

REFERENCES

Conde, E., Torres-Lana, E. and Ruiz, C. (2002). El nuevo escenario de Internet: lás relaciones para-sociales de adolescentes y jóvenes en la red, Cultura y Educación, 14, 2, pp. 133-136.

Costa, G. (2005). Internet: middle of communication ethically incompatible? Or not?, Ethicomp 2005. Available in the Internet: http://localhost/conferences/ethicomp/ethicomp2005/conferencepapers/61

Costa, G. and Silva, N. (2007). Internet and young people: how ethical can it be?. ETHICOMP 2007, Tokyo, Japan.

December, J. (1996). Internet communication, Journal of Communication, 46, pp. 14-33.

Eysenback, G. and Till, J. (2001). Ethical Issues in Qualitative Research on Internet Communities, BMJ, 323, pp. 1103-1105.

Frankel, M. and Siang, S. (1999). Ethical and Legal Aspects of Human Subjects Research on the Internet: A Report of a Workshop. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Available at the Internet: http://www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/sfrl/projects/intres/report.pdf

Macionis, J. and Plummer, K. (1997). Sociology, A Global Introduction. : New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc.

AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa, Mary Prior and Simon Rogerson

ABSTRACT

The knowledge revolution in the last decade has set the basis for the so-called knowledge economy, which is becoming far more complex and involved. Organizations and individuals are increasingly required to learn more and more. Hence to achieve a competitive advantage knowledge and understanding is becoming far more important than data and information.

However, the quest for obtaining knowledge and in fact utilizing it is not original. This effort is old as the history of human thought (Spiegler, 2000). For example, Plato, Descartes and Kant have all made attempts to define and understand the nature of knowledge and to unearth the forces underpinning various phenomena in life. In fact, the diverse schools of thought regarding knowledge management underpin such reality, but primarily we need to describe the concept of knowledge management

Research in knowledge management has gained tremendous pace since its inception in the last decade as evidenced by the extensive existing literature and its further growth (Ponzi and Koenig, 2002). Knowledge management is a multi-faceted phenomenon and integrates dissimilar inter-linked processes (Egbu, Botterill and Bates, 2001). The purpose is to create a thriving working and learning environment that fosters the continuous creation, aggregation, use and reuse of both personal and organizational knowledge in the pursuit of a new business value (Kikawada and Holtshouse, 2001). Quintas, Lefrere and Jones (1997) express the same view about KM where they consider it as the process of continually managing knowledge of all kinds to meet existing and emerging needs, to identify and exploit existing and acquired knowledge assets to develop new opportunities.

Clearly such concept engages two analytical levels: foster learning and organizational knowledge. And finally, these levels are approached by the existent schools of thought: Japanese, European and American; in accordance to their cultural and societal environment as Cardoso et al. (2003) plead.

In fact, such reality is easily perceived if we pay attention to the philosophical systems that characterize each region: the concept of “ba” in Nonaka´s model (1991, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2002) is clearly based on the philosophical Asian systems, such as: Budhism, Confucionism, Daoism and Taoism. The American school engages information and communication technology as a relevant mean to achieve knowledge management (see for example Nikolaos et al., 2005), which translates a more individualistic perception of life supported by Aristotelian philosophical system. Finally, the European school may be seen as mix, because it assumes as presupposition the attempt to measure knowledge resources (Kaplan and Norton, 1997; Edvinsson and Malone, 1997; Stewart, 1997; Sveiby, 1997; Roos et al, 1998).

Plus, and more importantly, knowledge management incorporates a strong personal dimension that enables a possible success or not regarding an organizational knowledge management project designing unforeseen ethical challenges; therefore, the need to discuss individual ethics should be a reality and not a hype.

Given the previous facts, the aim of this paper is to link the local philosophical systems into the knowledge management process allowing a comparison, regarding the ethical and moral dilemmas that may arise to knowledge workers individually. Moreover, we will demonstrate that such challenges are similar, and in fact, the need for individual transparency is unconditional.

But, how can we define individual transparency? The expression “transparent” comes from the Latin word “transparere,” a combination of trans- (“through”) and parere (“come in sight, appear”). Focusing into the etymological foundation we may state that transparency is a “state of mind” or praxis for ethical behaviours.

Finally, we will demonstrate that Floridi´s information theory (1999; 2004; 2006) may provide important answers to that personal dimension of knowledge management, through two levels of justification:

• the characteristics of such theory;
• and, how information and communication technologies empower people individually.
• The name information ethics is appropriate to Floridi´s theory, because it treats everything that exists as “informational” objects or processes. In fact, all entities will be described as clusters of data, that is, as information objects. More precisely, any existing entity will be a discrete, self-contained, encapsulated package containing because:
• the appropriate data structures, which constitute the nature of the entity in question, that is, the state of the object, its unique identity and its attributes;
• a collection of operations, functions, or procedures, which are activated by various interactions or stimuli (that is, messages received from other objects or changes within itself) and correspondingly define how the object behaves or reacts to them.

At this level of abstraction, informational systems as such, rather than just living systems in general, are raised to the role of agents and patients of any action, with environmental processes, changes and interactions equally described informationally (Floridi, 2006).

Information and communication technologies allowed an unseen level of information dissemination, and simultaneous allowed that people obtain a novel character by thus absorbing its unique sources of social power. But such reality also enhances exponentially the ethical challenges too. As Floridi (2006) states, ICT engages a tragedy of the Good Will.

REFERENCES

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Floridi, L. (2006). Information technologies and the tragedy of good will, Ethics and Information Technology, 8, 4, pp. 253-262.

Floridi, L. and Saunders, J. (2004). The foundationalist debate on computer ethics. In Spinello, R. and Tavani, H. (Eds.). Readings in Cyberethics, pp. 81-95, 2nd ed. Jones and Bartlett.

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AUTHOR
Gonçalo Jorge Morais da Costa

ABSTRACT

The Internet has become impossible to ignore, because it became a social phenomenon that has changed the lives of 25 million users in accordance to the latest estimates. Today, people use the Internet for email, instant messaging, online dating and blogging, among other things. Most of these activities are interactive and much different from the previous mass media. Never before has this freedom and scope of interaction been available, and there is no question that people and the way in which they interact have been changed by the use of the Internet.

The drama enhances when children are exploring this world of possibilities attempting to expand their horizons. During that process they can be exposed to a considerable number of dangers as literature suggests. In that sense, some questions arise: can we claim that control is different when compared to television? How we parents may or should control that access? Are the existent software’s effective? Answer to such questions is to acknowledge the aim of this paper.

Regarding the first question, is easily to perceive if your kids still engage their amusements unrelated to television. If they seem more interested in TV rather their lives or family members, if they are endlessly urging you to buy things they have seen on television, etc., then perhaps the need to engage control is real.

Similarly, the time displacement theory considers that time spent on the Internet must necessarily come from time previously allocated to other activities (Kwan, 2003; Nie and Hillygus, 2002; Robinson et al., 2000; 2002). Television viewing is frequently quoted as an activity that is displaced by Internet use, whether respondents are personally asked about their viewing habits (Dryburgh, 2001; Williams, 2001; Nie and Erbring, 2000) or whether the findings result from longitudinal analysis of users, or one-time diary studies (Robinson et al., 2002). Others state that Internet users watch less television than non-users, but conclude that much of the difference is explained by demographic differences between the two groups (Cole and Robinson, 2002; Neustadtl and Robinson, 2002). Other studies find that sleep is another activity displaced in part by Internet use (Fu, Wang and Qiu, 2002; Robinson et al., 2002).

But, control or not to control is the most important question… However, before address such issue it is interesting to analyze the etymology of such concept, given the fact that can provide us some interesting thoughts regarding the scope of this paper. Control can be seen as the “power” that directly determines a situation; a relation of constraint of one entity (thing or person or group) by another, or, the state that exists when one person or group has power over another. In that sense, two questions seem bounded to such concept:

which is the limit for an effective control (the trade-off)?;
and, which are the ethical limits of control?

To answer the first sub-question- the software effectiveness- I will make a comparative analysis for some existent software’s regarding kid’s internet control, such as: WatchDog, WebScout, ChatBlocker, Block Website Buddy, Safe Eyes, Control Kids, Pure Sight, Parental Control Tool, Access Control, Children Control and Spector Pro. I should referrer that, such analysis will be performed having in consideration the criteria that literature imposes (see for example: Frankl and Weyuker, 2000; Boehm and Basili, 2001; Chen, Lyu, and Wong, 2001). The analysis criteria will compare the software effectiveness and reliability with the enabled functions purposed by the producing software companies.

And finally, to answer the second sub-question it is possible to acknowledge my personal view on such subject. A fact is that people may use excessive words or comments online; moreover, we may claim from the previous analysis that such software’s effectiveness is limited, which sets a limit for control the Internet use by our children. But, which are the ethical limits of control?

It is not hard to understand why society in general wants to filter this kind of information, like I plead into my previous works (Costa, 2005; Costa and Silva, 2007). Such filtering has two dominant perspectives:

• human filtering;
• machine filtering.

The difference between these two perspectives can be explained through a metaphor: the first one can be seen as a person hiring a warehouse full of marginalise people and then, set them to work looking at every web-page on the Internet, asking them to accurately rank each page based on whether it is “adult” or “offensive” or “religious” or “irreligious” or “political” or you name it; the second one consists on hire a warehouse full of programmers and set them to work constructing lists of keywords and phrases that determine whether a document is “adult”, “offensive”, and etc. The result it is an imaginable list…

Both of these work about as you might expect: they block innumerable legitimate pages (one recent study found that one-third of the top search results for key concepts for the US common curriculum are blocked by mandatory library censorware) and let offensive, rough and light-hearted pages slip through.

However, the aim of this paper is not to debate such societal measures regarding Internet filtering and its ethics, but do determine the existence of ethical limits concerning parental control. It is ethical to control our kids? If yes, which are the limits and consequences of such control?

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