AUTHOR

Farinaz Fassa (Switzerland)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to question the “reality” of the changes that the introduction of communication and information technologies (ICT), coupled with teaching methods and school curricula reforms, generated in the school system of Vaud.

Many political discourses (OECD, UE) stress on the fact that the current changes are due to the development of the information and communication technologies. They claim that this supposed Information Age will bring a more democratic society while flattening hierarchical relationships. These discourses take very often for granted that the emerging knowledge and/or information society will be driven by a “knowledge economy”. From these views, school systems have to adapt. They have to build the computer skills that everyone will need in the future to avoid being a victim of the “digital divide”. Teachers are especially called upon to build these new skills. They are considered as the most privileged intermediary users of ICT. Therefore, they should master this technology and make it part of their daily work in order to transfer these skills to their students.

Mosconi (1994), Baudoux (1997) and other feminist researchers showed that besides explicit curricula, schools convey what they call “hidden curricula” that include learning the way a system is working through the experience of relationships between persons and organisational structure. Our hypothesis is that the way teachers are acting towards this technology is partially at the roots of students representations and practices. We focused our attention on the relationships between gender and technology. This question appeared, along the research, to be a good marker for understanding how tradition relates with innovation and for assessing the types of changes -linked to the so-called information society- that are implemented. We addressed a questionnaire survey to 15% of the teachers working in this area in the French part of Switzerland to understand what were their representations and practices of computer in their professional environment.

Results

1. While women use more the computers with their students than men, their know-how in this field are not acknowledged:
   • They are addressed only as basic users; they have rarely access to highly qualifying courses and are never considered as designers of these knew know-how.
   • They think of themselves as less qualified than their masculine colleagues.
2. More than men women link computer with social characteristics. They are not as their colleagues driven by the technical side of the machines. They insist less on efficiency than men, although they associate more than men the use of computers to professional activities.
3. Women adopt more than men determinist views about the relationships between technology and society.

Those results, among others, show that one denies competence to women in this field and that they agree with this view. Moreover, they believe that the technological field is of tremendous importance for social development and at the same time, they consider themselves as outsiders. These elements show that the representations of computer at school are as well clearly organized on a gender line, as they are related to the way power is dealt with. On one side, men aim to master the technology, they are the designers of school programs in this area ; on the other side, women put up with it.

In our view, these gendered images have influence on the students (we could not verify this hypothesis as the access to the students was not given to us by the school authorities) and will modify their view on technology. They may renew the traditional inequity between males and females, proposing to the first powerful positions and to the second executant’s roles, which is reinforced, since in the upcoming “information society” computer abilities are highly valued. The building of these specific relationships between women and technology is in the straight line of what anthropologists, such as Tabet (1998), point out while analyzing “traditional” societies : it is a way to reproduce the domination of women by male.

Those results raise social and ethical questions about the meanings of the changes induced by or related to IT, especially when there are taking place within an organisation in charge of building personalities for the future. They show that the school organisation, despite its assertion of neutrality and its claims to develop autonomous and responsible persons, is reproducing (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1973) the main inequities, even if it adorns this process with new discourses. They also point out that tradition and innovation mix on a particular way, such as the main traditional patterns, related to the dealing with power, stay stable.

AUTHOR

Joaquim M. da Cunha Viana (Portugal)

ABSTRACT

Data is more and more available, within Public Administration Offices, in the Health, Employment and Social Security sectors. The interchange of these data between these Departments is, on one hand, very important in order to reduce stress upon people that need the services, and on the other hand, quite sensitive to handle and manage.

This paper tries to analyse the organizational changes ethics implications related to the improvements already achieved and those that are at reach right now but not yet implemented, in what concerns collection and interchange of data between the Portuguese National Health Service, Social Security Service and IEFP – Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional – the Portuguese Employment Agency.

People reaching for these offices are normally, either physically or psychologically fragile and in the cases of unemployed, very often, financially diminished. The interchange of data between offices allows these people to reduce the travelling between, consequently reducing the necessity for more traumatizing interviews, during which, the already fragile persons have to open their lives to civil servants with all the resultant humiliation and money spending.

On the other hand, that kind of interchange leaves the door open for the unethical utilization of personal data by unscrupulous elements that might access to it. Information as sensitive as someone’s health records and/or unemployment situation should never become public unless otherwise stated by the person herself.

This tells us about the need for new and adequate legislation regarding the protection of personal data within the public databases and, above all, the definition and implementation of effective control mechanisms, capable of guaranteeing law enforcement

AUTHOR

Harjinder Rahanu, Jennifer Davies and Mike Allen (UK)

ABSTRACT

Within the School of Computing and IT, University of Wolverhampton, the Social, Legal and Professional Aspects of Computing (SLAPA) module is taught on the undergraduate degree programmes and a version is taught at MSc level. The broad aim of the module is to allow students to better function as professionals when in employment, by studying the ethical duties associated with computer use. Students enrolled on the module are taught ethical analysis of scenarios that are met in the IT world. At the present time students use text-based paper copies of real world scenarios, which are worked through in the classroom as examples. Finally, as part of their assessment regime, students are given a text-based scenario to analyse. To further assist their deliberations they use a Case-Based Reasoner (CBR) to find the closest matching worked case from a library of cases to serve as an exemplar.

The Wolverhampton Online Learning Framework (WOLF) is a purpose-built computer-based learning environment developed by the University of Wolverhampton. The University’s Learning and Teaching Strategy aims to support learning with technology, with WOLF as the favoured vehicle.

This research intends to compare the impact of different information presentation systems to determine which best enhances student learning on the Social, Legal and Professional Aspects of Computing module. The current text-based information system without images will be compared to a multimedia system, which is more dynamic and interactive, and will be developed to include both text and video images as part of the research project. It is anticipated that the multimedia system will be demonstrated at ETHICOMP 2002. This approach will be delivered via WOLF and is based on the example project demonstrated by Staley . Caldeira has reported research into a comparison of the effectiveness of different information systems on student learning.

Two classes of subjects, semester 1 and semester 2 SLAPA module students will be set an ethical analysis assignment. The semester 1 students will be taught, as currently, using text based material and required to use the CBR to retrieve the closest matching case and adapt the resolution to the current example.

Semester 2 students will do a similar ethical analysis assignment. However, they will be exposed to a different teaching strategy: the multimedia system will facilitate the student’s learning through video scenarios linked to teaching material. They will not use the paper-based text examples or CBR. In the former system material will be presented via hypertext links in a “tree” format. In the latter traditional system the material is presented sequentially. The former WOLF-based system should better encourage independent learning. Additionally, WOLF will allow teaching staff to monitor students’ activities using the multimedia system to provide a measure of the extent to which individual students are engaging with the task.

The grades for assignments achieved by individual students can be used as indicators as to which information system is the more conducive to enhancing student learning. In comparing grades between semester 1 and 2 students it will be essential that the researchers compare like students with like. Hence, a comparative sample will be taken from each group based on their final degree classifications. A questionnaire will be distributed to semester 2 students to ascertain user satisfaction in the multimedia system.

The following benefits are anticipated:

• A better understanding of the use of Technology Supported Learning (TSL) as a vehicle for learning of computer ethics in education and industry
• A new approach to TSL for School of Computing & IT
  Impetus for other organisations to evaluate alternative technological approaches to TSL
• Potential enhancements of the effectiveness of teaching and learning for computer ethics modules in education
• Feeding into the British Computer Society (BCS) development of a strategy for teaching the Code of Conduct under the auspice of the BCS Ethics Expert Panel

The effectiveness of using a Technology Supported Learning approach in an educational setting must be evaluated in comparison to the existing traditional means of delivery to justify the switch from one approach to another.

REFERENCES

Rahanu, H. and Davies, J. (1998)
Intelligent Reasoner for Failed Information Systems Projects http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~cm1995/cbr/
Accessed 21st March 2002

Staley, A. (2001)
Computer Supported Experiential Learning
Birmingham: University of Central England in Birmingham Press

Caldeira, P.Z. (2001)
Are the Information Technologies the New Discrimination Tools? Results from a Study on Learning, Satisfaction and Technology
In the proceedings of the 5th International Conference on the Social and Ethical Impacts of ICT (Ethicomp2001), Gdansk, June 18-20, 2001, Vol. (1), pp.116-126.

AUTHOR

Deborah Johnson (USA)

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I will draw on the literature of cience and technology studies, and take seriously the claim that technologies are socially constructed and that in the early stages of their development, they have interpretive flexibility. They are ‘made’ when relevant social groups come to consensus on what the technology is.

My focus will be on virtual reality technologies. I will argue that virtual reality is a technology still “in the making.” It is in the process of being socially interpreted and made into whatever it will become. This presents us with an ethical issue but one that is often missed. The question is not just whether we should be concerned about the effects of this technology on individuals, groups, and human affairs? Rather, the question is how should we think about it? What should we “make” of virtual reality?

Technologies evolve through iterations and negotiations between designers, users, and a variety of groups that give meaning to the technology and fit it into their understanding of the world. The moral question is: what we are ‘make of virtual reality.’ The question is missed when we ask what virtual reality ‘is’ as if it had an essential nature independent of the meaning human beings give it. I will argue that we should be cautious and reflective in conceptualizing virtual reality. While we have to understand its silicon characteristics, these leave much room for interpretation.

AUTHOR

Stuart Nolan (UK)

ABSTRACT

New broadcast media technologies are changing what we understand to be “TV” and the ethical cultures of the organizations that produce it. In order to discuss the changing relationships behind this deceptively simple statement this paper draws on research into how viewers are using the new capabilities of TV, as well as the motivations of the TV content producing organizations developing these capabilities.

As Roger Silverstone argues, “We need to think of television as a psychological, social and cultural form, as well as an economic and political one.” TV is not simply a delivery mechanism but rather it can be understood as, a technology, an industry, a media, a cultural institution, a subject for academic study, and a personal experience. Its intrinsic nature alters its content in many ways. In documentary reporting, television alters the political and professional structures by which we create “news”. TV puts forward, enforces and reinforces social ideals of individuals, family, nation and the world. When we watch TV we feel as though we belong to what Rath has called an “electronically constituted society”, where TV is as much a mediator as a media.

It has been suggested that we live life as though we are on TV and the fact that this feeling no longer surprises should tell us something. More startling is the assertion that we have in fact gone beyond the situationist society of the spectacle in which life, including ourselves, becomes content for TV and in which, to use Baudrillard’s phrase, “You no longer watch TV, TV watches you (live).” Going further, Baudrillard argues that the medium and the message are no longer even discernibly separate and that we are witnessing “the dissolution of TV into life, the dissolution of life into TV”.

Against this theoretical background how are new technologies affecting those organizations involved in producing TV? Digital Television (DTV) dramatically changes the relationship between the producer and the viewer and, when combined with a Europe wide liberalization of the market, a relaxation of regulation, and confusion amongst regulators trying to form policies that encompass the new capabilities of DTV, leads the TV producing industries into new and problematic areas.

This paper will consider how the changing relationship between viewer and producer brought about by new media technologies has begun to affect the producer organizations notions of what TV is and consequently their notions of responsibility towards the viewer. The corporate ethics of a media organization is largely based on its perceived relationship to the media consumer. The discussion will compare and contrast the changing perception of the producer-consumer relationship by discussing two very different broadcasters. The BBC is looking to new technologies to fulfill its Reithian role to educate, inform and entertain while competing on more commercial platforms. The cable company NTL is struggling to maintain its core service provision approach while moving into new areas as a content producer.

Interactive TV that allows viewers to choose their own news feeds is changing the aims of the news producers who are asked to format stories in smaller segments and for a variety of platforms. This is true to a lesser degree of other genres such as documentary and the paper will consider how the BBC is changing as it has to develop content for multiple platforms. While the BBC cannot charge for broadcast content beyond the license fee, it can charge for content sent to individuals, to mobile phones for instance. This lure of new revenue streams puts the BBC in a dilemma as it tries to balance its role as a public service with a need to innovate.

Commercial broadcasters are also tempted by new revenue streams from adult content as conditional access systems have to some degree moved the moral burden of protecting minors from unsuitable content from the regulators and broadcasters to the viewer.

In additional to traditional broadcasters moving into new ethically problematic areas there are a number of new broadcasters, the cable companies and Telco’s, who until recently based their business on simple carriage of data but now see themselves as content producers making anything from games to educational applications. These companies lack the ethical framework that has developed, over the long history of TV, in the corporate culture of traditional broadcasters and are less constrained by what many in these organizations consider to be outmoded notions of public service, decency and taste.

Using the ongoing debate on convergence in European DTV regulation as a framework these broadcaster’s changing attitudes towards three controversial areas – privacy, advertising, and gambling – will be discussed.

The ability to track the viewers habits combined with customer management systems (CMS) and AI based user modeling raises issues of privacy and we have already seen legislation changes in California due to suspected invasion of privacy by a DTV company. The viewers are no longer seen by the producer as a mass market of unknowns but as a mine of useful demographic and psychographic data of great value to direct marketing companies.

Technologies such as Personal Video Recorders, which allow viewers to skip adverts, and Video on Demand combined in an increase in subscription have begun to reduce the importance of advertising to broadcasters. Although this is a minor effect at present a number of new uses of DTV – chat, email, games, shopping – are predicted to compete with advertising for the viewers attention. This has begun to shift the content producers attention from making popular content that satisfies the advertisers target demographic to seeking ways to monetise their content directly through voting, games and direct merchandising.

In the UK, the Budd report has broadened the scope for Interactive TV gambling and gaming and large parts of the revenue generated by broadcasters such as BskyB come from viewers betting on sporting events or paying to play games in the hope of winning a cash prize.

AUTHOR

Krystyna Górniak-Kocikowska and Elbieta Pakszys

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on the noticeable under-representation of women in the creation and development of ICT. The authors look for the causes of this situation in the history of women and technology. The relevance of values preferred by women for their evaluation of ICT is also taken into consideration. The thesis of the paper is that the difference in the hierarchy of values, in particular ethical values, accepted by women and men might be the reason for women’s lack of interest in the creation and development of ICT. If this thesis were correct, there is the question about the significance of the long-term consequences of the lack of women’s involvement in the development of ICT, especially in the light of the enormous power of this technology, and considering its potential for the future. The authors argue that the existing gender imbalance in the process of the development of ICT as well as in the process of production of knowledge is bad for the future of ICT and for the future of the human kind. Hence, in their own interest, not only women and women’s organizations, but also the organizations and institutions representing the ICT and the process of production of knowledge should become actively involved in the creation of mechanisms encouraging women’s participation in these processes. The authors see also an urgent need for a collaborative effort to create a philosophical theory of the emerging new reality, including the new stage in the evolution of human species.