AUTHOR

Helen J Richardson and Sheila French (UK)

ABSTRACT

This paper considers UK government policy making in the so-called ‘global knowledge economy’. Britain’s engagement is seen as crucial to its future success in the global market place (Alexander, 2001a). Individuals and organisations are urged to change their way of working, learning and living in this ‘new economy’. High value is being placed on those with ICT skills and the UK government recognises the need to ensure society has the necessary skills to take part.At the same time there is a heightened awareness of a growing digital divide in British Society between the ‘have-nets’ and have-nots. Issues of gender differences in access and the use of technology are one of the features of this divide (Alexander, 2001b). In their efforts to reverse what they refer to as the ‘challenge of women’s participation in ICT’ (Alexander, 2001b), the UK government propose a number of initiatives (DfEE 2001). The aim is to get women to engage in technology and gain access to IT in education, work and in their social lives. With the use of role models they wish to improve the image of IT. In education they will encourage girls to be to be enthusiastic about the technologies and gain confidence to compete with the boys in what is recognised as male domination in ICT’s in the classroom. They suggest career paths that are relevant to women and have working conditions to support women and their needs. They promote changing business attitudes to employing women and encouraging flexible working conditions for parents.

This paper critically evaluates the various initiatives and policies the UK government proposes, to counter this gender divide. We note the government taking a traditional view of equal opportunities and ICT’s. A reluctance of girls to embrace the computer, for example, is often perceived as a ‘problem’ of girl’s confidence or boys behaving badly rather than rooted within the technology (Clegg 2001). This is unconvincing given Siann’s (1997) finding that girls ‘can use ICT’s but don’t want to’. We question the motivation of policy making. Are these well-intentioned if misguided initiatives aimed at getting all of society connected, or is it a means of staffing low paid ICT work, foisting the responsibility of employment on to the individual and encouraging women to be a temporary breech of the skills gap?

Applying feminist theories of technology, the paper will provide evidence that technology is not gender-neutral (Griffiths, 1985, Wajcman, 1991,) and that by representing it as such, key issues such as power (Oakley 2001) and the dominant discourses around the use and implementation of technology and ICT’s will be obscured. Moreover through our research in schools and the Further and Higher Education sector, we note that girls and women are exercising choices – not to use ICT’s, not to choose IT as a degree subject, not to work in the field of IT. Computing is seen as nerdy, geeky anti-social, machine-orientated, mathematical and solitary (Selby et al 1997). There is the mysterious case of the vanishing women in HE Computing courses and in the IT labour market the representation of women is falling, gender segregation pervades and the numbers of women decline the further up the hierarchy you go (Pantelli 1998).

In our view the UK government’s initiatives and stress on the so-called ‘new economy’, ‘digital revolution’, ‘information society’ and so on reveals their technological deterministic stance and therefore we argue cannot get ‘under the skin’ of the many issues. We discuss how gendered relations in the home, work and education go far beyond having access to ICT’s and how these relations contribute to the shaping of the gendered experiences of using technology. Moreover, we suggest that the current gendered discourse surrounding technology should inform government policies globally.

Should we be concerned if women are exercising choices and opting out? In their discussions about the computing industry Selby et al (1997) argue that increasing the participation of women will bring to the industry a more diverse range of experience, creativity and expertise.

This paper argues that it is not possible to look for solutions to the ‘gender-divide’ without exploring the current structures of power and inequality in the use of technologies and ICT’s. By not considering these issues it is likely that existing power structures and inequalities will be intentionally or unintentionally perpetuated. What is clear is that despite our recognition of the reasons behind the ‘push’ to use technologies, if women do opt out it may be to their detriment and certainly that of society as a whole.

REFERENCES

Alexander, D. (2001a). Impact of ICT on Competitiveness, dti, available at. www.dti.gov.uk/ministers/speeches/alexander141101.html (accessed 11/12/01)

Alexander, D. (2001b). IT for the Commond Man, dti, available at. www.dti.gov.uk/ministers/speeches/alexander141101.html(accessed 11/12/01)

Clegg, S. (2001) Theorising the Machine: gender, education and computing. Gender and Education 13(No. 3): 307-324.

DfEE (2001). Opportunity for all in a world of change. DFEE. CM 5052. London, The Stationary Office.

Griffiths, D. (1985). The exclusion of women from technology, in Smothered by invention. (eds) W. Faulkner and E. Arnold. London, Pluto Press: 51-71.

Oakley, A. (2001). Foreword. A. Brooks and A. Mackinnon. (Eds) in Gender and the Restructured University, Buckingham, SRHE and Open University Press Imprint: viii.

Panteli, N. (1998). Review of ‘Women computer professional: progress and resistance’ by Rosemary Wright. Journal of Strategic Information Systems 7: 71-77.

Selby, L., Young, A., Fisher, D. (1997). Increasing the participation of women in tertiary level computing courses: what works and why. ASCILITE’97.

Siann, G. (1997). We Can, We Don’t Want to: Factors Influencing Women’s Participation in Computing. In R. Lander and A. Adam. (Eds) Women in Computing, Intellect. Exeter

Wajcman, J. (1991). Feminism confronts technology. Cambridge, Polity Press

AUTHOR

Paula Roberts (Australia)

ABSTRACT

The past five years have seen a dramatic change in the ethos and mission of Australian universities, which may herald the demise of the traditional university, and the essence of its familial relationship between students and teachers (Slaughter & Leslie 1997; Kenway & Langmead 1998; Marginson & Considine 2000 and Molony 2000). This substantial change is an outcome of the significant, inter-connected paradigmatic shifts in the financing, governance and curricula of these institutions. Firstly, federal governments, by progressively withdrawing financial support from the universities, and exhorting them to become self-sufficient, have been implicated in these institutions’ change to entrepreneurial, commercial entities serving customers, where once they taught students. Secondly, a new model of university management has emerged which incorporates the ‘flattened’ structures of the corporate world and replaces the multi-layered, collegial management once typical of the traditional university. This older form of university governance included participative committees which involved academics in decision-making, whereas, in the new corporate university, a remote senior management stands aloof from its ‘blue collar’ academics on the factory floor. Thirdly, university councils are now dominated by non-academic, ‘high-achievers’ from the corporate world who have been co-opted to transform the traditional university into a ‘high-tech’, global, commercial purveyor of educational packages, leading to generic, on-line degrees which are delivered electronically in a ‘virtual’ university.

The virtual university might have evolved more steadily from ongoing educational and technological developments instead of its rapid emergence as a matter of expediency in times of acute financial stringency. University managements have seized the opportunity presented by the financial crisis to reshape university curricula by closing whole campuses and cutting programs deemed less attractive than others for marketing and online delivery, making redundant associated staff members and reducing overall running costs in order to free capital for the technological infrastructure of the virtual university. Thus the virtual university has become inextricably linked with the downsizing of academia.

These interrelated and substantial pressures on universities have brought radical and rapid changes in the ethos and mission of the institutions, which represent a hidden structural re-orientation as both cause and effect of downsizing which has been identified by Cameron et al. (1993), Capelli (1999) and Dawkins et al. (1999). The academic and administrative staff survivors of these troubled times are faced with uncertain futures, as well as significantly increased workloads, in a climate where dissent may equate, at best, with reduced opportunities for promotion, and, at worst, with forced redundancy. The plight of the survivors of downsizing who appear to suffer a ‘survivor syndrome’ has received increasing attention in the academic literature (Brockner & Greenberg 1990, Brockner et al. 1994 and Dawkins et al. 1999). Of particular interest for this paper is the relationship between survivor syndrome and trust in management (Brockner & Siegel 1996), the breach of the psychological contract (Morrison & Robinson 1997; King 2000 and Robinson & Morrison 2000), its ethical aspects (Rosenblatt & Schaeffer 2000) and its implications for workplace stress (Spreitzer & Mishra 2000, Gillespie et al. 2001).

This paper also reports data from three recent surveys of stress in Australian academics. The first relates to a stress survey of its academic members which was conducted by a state branch of the National Tertiary Education Union which revealed high levels of stress related to distrust of the institution’s management and poor communication, lack of consultation, and an apparent lack of caring. These outcomes surprised the institution’s managers who commissioned their own independent staff survey which produced similar results.

The preliminary results from the third and much larger survey of work-related stress in seventeen Australian universities reveal that clinical stress in the 9000 academics surveyed was

“disturbingly high with nearly half of the respondents being classed as possible ‘cases’, and nearly a third as possible ‘severe cases’ … These results have serious implications for the mental health of Australian university staff.”

This paper analyses the findings from these surveys by using concepts from the literature related to organizational trust and its general usefulness for understanding the ethical aspects of downsizing and survivor syndrome. The paper concludes with a discussion of the positive efforts required if stress in Australian university personnel is to be reduced through the re-establishment of trusting, co-operative relationships between management and staff. It is argued that the hierarchical, (if paternalistic), leadership of a community of scholars, once the norm in traditional universities, invoked a form of mutual trust in upholding the psychological contract of established obligations between academics and management regarding both the performance and the context of academic duties. Traditional management has ‘flattened’ in the modern entrepreneurial university, and the psychological contract has been breached, with serious consequences for staff morale, productivity and commitment, phenomena which are accompanied by the changes in trust which are allied with membership of these new institutions in a post-traditional society (Giddens 1994).

AUTHOR

Andrew Reynolds (UK)

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Massively Multiplayer On-line Role Playing Games (MMORPG) have developed from simple goal oriented games into complex networks of social, economic and legal relationships between players and the organizations that design, develop, market and maintain these worlds. At present the web of rights and responsibilities that do, and potentially should, exist between actors in the game ecosystem is both nebulous and in a state of rapid change.

This paper explores issues of rights in MMORPG’s. The paper will examine in detail the rights that pertain to the intellectual property generated as a result of individuals participating in a game community e.g. players’ in-game characters.

Practical aspects of the paper will be based on an examination of two current, highly popular games: Ultima On-line and Everquest. Theoretical aspects of the paper will be xxx philosophical basis of contract law, and deontological ethics in general.

The paper will also locate its arguments within two broader discussions. First, the question of ethics within code and the attendant responsibilities associated with the design, development maintenance of that code. Second, the debate around community generated IPR e.g. OpenSource, community created databases etc.

MMORPG’s and Limits of Action

MMORPG’s also known as Persistent World Games are virtual environments made up of a world maintained on central computers; and player characters generated in the world through players running game software, usually on a personal computer connected periodically to the servers using a wide area network, usually the internet.

The range of actions that player characters can undertake within a game e.g. speed of movement, damage caused to other player characters during conflict, and the level of in-game character-to-character communication, are limited to the modes of interaction made available through the game software and the limits of contemporary CIT.

There are also loose social restraints on the actions of individuals e.g. picking on weaker characters could result in sanctions such as social exclusion or even the harming or destruction of a character by other members of the community acting as a kind of ad hoc law enforcement agency.

To some degree there is also a social relationship between the game players and the game developers. This is chiefly though game communities but also through direct action and in one famous case protest action within the game space itself.

Lastly, certain extra-game actions such as the assignment of a player character to another individual are limited by the contract between game players and the game provider (and to some degree the game code). However in this particular case there are legal disputes around issues of the rights of ownership of and assignment of the IPR associated with game characters and artefacts.

Enabling or limiting action implies a right and \ or responsibility. The degrees of freedom in a game as a whole imply an ethical stance taken by the game developer and the game players themselves. Just as the fictional world of the game is an analogue of a political system, the mixed real \ virtual ecosystem centred on a game can also be seen as an analogy of a political system. These parallels will be used in the paper to illuminate potential systems that current games could be said to be towards and hence highlight potential ethical discontinuities.

Character ownership

Due to the limits of action noted above and the passion with which some individuals play these games, the abilities of individual player characters are highly valued within a game community. Over time player characters increase in both personal and potentially economic value because players can alter the characteristics of their character through participating in the game community with both persistence and skill. For example, through successful completion of a task a player can acquire character attributes that in turn modify the way that the player can interact with the environment e.g. increased fighting capabilities. The player can also accumulate in-game artefacts such as swords or gold. At a social level player characters also generate a level of reputation with the game community or some part thereof.

IPR

Sony prohibits the sale of player characters and artefacts. However despite this a recent report demonstrated that the value of the real world economy that surrounds EverQuest, as measured by eBay transactions, would place the world of EverQuest 77th in the league table of global economies, one place behind Russia.

Sony’s argument for banning extra-game trading is that this distorts game play. That is Sony maintain that they are protecting a greater good i.e. the rights of their ‘citizens’, and that they have a duty to do so.

Any game that does explicitly enable a real world economy e.g. Project Entropia – a game currently in development that intends to use PED’s (Project Entropy Dollars) a virtual currency that will bought with real currency, will carry with it the responsibly commensurate with this. That is, one would expect the game system to use similar quality mechanism as those used by financial institutions not only to protect financial transactions but to protect the economic value of characters and artefacts.

Conclusion

Given the present state of MMORPG’s and the limits of action within these games Sony’s present position is ethically defensible. However, if Sony were itself to seek to sell EverQuest or any part there of their position would come under question.

Further as games progress in sophistication and the scope for individual to create unique characters and artefacts within the game world grows, game developer’s argument for ownership of this IPR becomes less tenable. In the creation of future games, developers need to take this into account and modify their organizational structure, development methodologies, game design and legal stance accordingly.

AUTHOR

Byron Kaldis (Greece)

ABSTRACT

The overall question this paper has in view is whether we should expect that the transformation of organizations due to information technology may turn out to be an enhancement of our ethical power to define corporate responsibility with the required sharpness. In terms of its primary orientation and general methodology, this paper lies within the field of philosophy, though it approaches the matter from within an interdisciplinary perspective.

The question of what constitutes corporate social responsibility is not new nor are the difficulties associated with an attempt at a precise definition unknown to all those discussing business ethics or to those concerned with drawing the outlines of practical policies. It is both a theoretical and a practical issue of topical importance. In fact, the difficulties surrounding the definition of corporate responsibility in general, and its social version in particular, stem from the fact that it is foremost a theoretical problem that is subsequently inherited by the practical sphere. These problems are primarily about the difficulty first, of defining in an unproblematic manner the concept of a corporation as a possible bearer of responsibility without logical contradiction, and second, being able to focus on precisely the locus or loci where such responsibility (once it is logically granted) should be discovered to rest within corporations. Given the legal status of corporations as well as their multileveled inter-bracketed structure, it is no surprise that not only is the concept of ascribing responsibility fraught with logical problems, but also the resulting diffusion of responsibility into various interlocking levels presents some with an argument as to the non-existence of such claims in the first place.

Within modern global conditions of a widespread dissemination of unprecedented means of advanced information and communication technologies, organizations acquire a new ‘persona’ by thus absorbing unique sources of social power. These sources are offered by ICT. Now it is a common place to assert the widening of horizons and the accelerating of the flow of information in a tightly interconnected, networked, world. But this is just the surface. The more important question is whether such an enhanced means of information gathering and communication may allow us to enhance our ethical powers too. This is what this paper shows.

ICT is Janus-faced. Unlike other types of modern technology, ICT is uniquely placed to either obscure sources of ethical misconduct and omissions or, alternatively, ensure the widest publicity possible. It can both help cover and uncover organizational practices in which responsibility is hidden. ICT is thus neither a threat to established social norms nor a puzzle to be understood by them: it is itself a new established social norm.

Given all this, this paper examines (a) how the old problems associated with specifying and ascribing corporate responsibility can be solved by ITC’s inherent Janus-faced properties, and (b) what new problems may be expected. Both (a) and (b) refer to the field of ethics. More specifically, it is argued that as far as (a) is concerned, ICT’s power to solve these old problems referred to above stems from its inherent property: once communication super-highways are established hiding information is also at the same time putting it at high risk of being disclosed. To the extent that there is a symmetrical activity involved, it is an additional argument of this paper that the same sources or possessors of the power to hide information are potentially the sources of disclosure irrespective of intentional motivation. Furthermore, this brings in an additional structural element in the whole analysis to which the discussion of this paper is committed: questions of motivation and intention must be considered as ineffectual in the case of ICT considered as an autonomous system of social norms. This is an important and rather telling twist to old-fashioned ethics now rendered inapplicable: intention drops out of the picture and moral philosophy has to trace a new field of ethical questioning without the familiar concepts of motivation and intention anchoring the discussion. At this point we have reached question (b)¾this showing the interconnectedness of the two questions examined here. The new problems that crop up, given the inability of the concept of intentional motivation to play a crucial role here, are especially poignant (and at the same time quite helpful in re-orienting our problem-solving theoretical apparatus) in the specific case of environmental degradation to which certain corporate activity unavoidably leads, as well as in the case of the wide responsibilities that multinational business is supposed to incur from within a cosmopolitan moral perspective. In the former case, that of the environment, the absence of the essentiality of intentional motivation that ICT affords, allows us to solve problems of ascription of responsibility to corporate actors that would otherwise be impossible, while at the same time it allows the passive recipients of the negative effects of such action, i.e. the environment itself as well as all of its organically diverse inhabitants, to be capable of being the bearers of intrinsic (non-motivationally related) values. In the other case, that of the multinationals’ activities, the conveniences, capabilities and all sorts of electronic advantages of ICT could be seen as, paradoxically, helping us re-evaluate the role of multinationals (and other transnational organizations) as mediators or vehicles of an alternative version of global citizenship. In globalized conditions of diminished state-sovereignty of the old kind, it is not necessarily the case that active citizenship should atrophy too. Other types of transnational organizations may step in forming a field within which such deliberative citizenship (with both national but also increasingly cross-national ends in view) may be re-activated. We can thus see in these two cases what the new ethico-political issues that corporate responsibility is linked with are and how it can be argued that an optimistic outlook may not be incongruous here.

AUTHOR

Andy Bissett (UK)

ABSTRACT

Some ethical dimensions of the synergy between high technology and warfare have been discussed previously [Bissett, 1997; 1999] in the specific context of the 1990s. The evolution of this close relationship between military imperatives and high technology poses a number of issues for computer ethicists. This paper updates the main areas of concern, and develops one area in more depth – that of the accuracy of modern weapons, which seems to pose the possibility of so-called ‘surgical strikes’. This concept depends upon computer technology for precise navigation and guidance. It will be argued that the discourse around ‘surgical strikes’ is predominantly a misleading and dangerous attempt to legitimise the continued development of high-tech weaponry.

Firstly, there is a need to evaluate the weapons’ manufacturers’ claims. They are as much a ‘sales pitch’ as statements of measured fact. This paper surveys the poor accuracy of high-tech weaponry in actual field conditions. For instance, it appears that laser guided bombs from the F117 ‘Stealth’ aircraft in the Gulf War hit only 60% of their targets, whilst the vaunted Tomahawk cruise missile hit just over 50% of its targets in the same conflict [Keeble, 1997]. Those warheads that missed their targets would have destroyed ‘other’ buildings and people. The inaccuracy of laser guided bombing in the Vietnam War, figures for the Gulf War of 1991 two decades later, the destruction of the Chinese embassy in Kosovo, and the effects of aerial bombing in Afghanistan in 2001 all show that in warfare, no matter how advanced the weapons, human and technical flaws will result in extensive death and destruction. Indeed it is likely that the military are perfectly aware of this and accept it. Claims to the contrary exist, for example, in order to assuage the public conscience. Thus the rhetoric of ‘surgical strikes’ takes on an essentially ideological meaning. The surgical metaphor carries connotations of science, precision, control, and asepsis. All of these values are at odds with the actualities of modern warfare, but the language used makes warfare seem more acceptable. The concept of ‘surgical strikes’ contains the additional attraction of a ‘technical fix’ rather than a more difficult and protracted, but eventually less deadly, political solution.

In warfare, the stakes are high – they could not possibly be higher – and a momentum develops wherein military forces and governments tend to do whatever is necessary in order to win. Whilst more accurate targeting in some circumstances may reduce the number of people killed and injured, the enthusiastic promotion of the concept of ‘surgical strikes’ also has its dangers. It implies that war may be prosecuted in a more ‘ethical’ manner, with fewer civilian casualties, for example, but this legitimating aspect is likely to promote the use of force to achieve political ends.

The ‘surgical’ metaphor also misrepresents the fundamental nature of warfare. Bourke [2000: 2] notes ‘the centrality of killing in modern battle’. The argument that weapons accuracy somehow makes war ‘better’, more modern, and ‘clean’, and that technological superiority delivers military victory, fundamentally misrepresents the nature of war itself. One simple fact, readily overlooked as unpalatable by the protagonists of high-tech warfare, is that, as Sir Geoffrey Vickers [1983] succinctly puts it, ‘the use of force leads to resistance’. This resistance may or may not be in the same high-tech coin, but guerrilla warfare and terror attacks also cause death and destruction, as recent history has shown. The temptation to try to achieve an easy solution through the use of technology is likely to initiate a long cycle of violence.

Needless to say, in situations of warfare, the promise of refined technology for more accurate identification and destruction of targets primarily increases the number and range of targets. Arguably this would lead to its greater use, and ultimately a greater number of human casualties. It must be remembered, whilst considering this greater likelihood of warfare, that allegedly ‘precise’ weapons are only ever used as a complement to more conventional weapons. Thus extensive use of high altitude ‘carpet bombing’ B52 aircraft was made in Vietnam, the Gulf War, and recently Afghanistan. Very often these deployed widely destructive ‘area’ weapons such as cluster bombs and fuel-air ‘daisy cutters’. Only 9% of the total tonnage of bombs dropped from the air in the Gulf War were ‘precision guided’ bombs [Keeble, 1997: 148]. Furthermore even ‘accurate’ weapons such as cruise missiles are used to carry indiscriminate warheads such as cluster bombs.

It is argued that most of the high technology ‘surgical strike’ mechanisms are inherently distancing in nature. This introduces a further ethical concern as the possibility of remote destruction may make its deployment easier in psychological as well as practical ways, an issue explored in a different context by Bissett & Shipton [2000]. Chomsky [2001: i] has pithily remarked that ‘Murder at a distance removes the need for elaborate defensive mechanisms’. Using further material from Howard [2000] and Bourke [2000], the paper explores the theme that distancing technologies are likely to encourage, or at least ease, the act of killing. This distancing is a centuries-old trend in weaponry, and it appears that the use of computer technology amplifies the destructive possibilities.

Finally the paper examines another danger in that the scope of warfare may be increased by the lure of more accurate targeting. Thus the possibilities of improved technology could be employed for ‘ethnic cleansing’, with, for instance, laser guided attacks on individual streets and houses, not to mention refugee camps.

In conclusion the paper draws attention to the distortion of informed debate about the political options and strategy that the rhetoric of ‘surgical strikes’ encourages.

REFERENCES

Bissett, A. (1997) Computing professionals and the ‘peace dividend’, Business Ethics A European Review, Blackwells Press, 6, (2) April 1997. 81-86

Bissett, A. (1999) Invited panel discussion: Ethical Aspects of Uses of ICT for Defence, ETHICOMP’99, LUISS Guido Carli, Rome, October 1999

Bissett, A. & Shipton, G. (2000) Some human dimensions of computer virus creation and infection, International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 52, (5), May 2000. 899-913

Bourke, J. (2000) An intimate history of killing, London: Granta Books

Chomsky, N. (2001) foreword in Jones Griffiths, P., Vietnam Inc., London: Phaidon Press.

Howard, M. (2000) The invention of peace, London: Profile Books Ltd.

Keeble, R. (1997) Secret state, silent press, Luton: John Libbey Media

Vickers, G. (1983) Human systems are different, London: Macmillan

AUTHOR

Frances Grodzinsky (USA), Joe Griffin (Ireland) and Pat Jefferies (England)

ABSTRACT

Many organizations within society have reinvented themselves using Information Communication Technology (ICT). Consequently their internal operations and the potential global reach of their activities have dramatically changed. This has been particularly evident in the field of education. ICT, with its web-based resources, has served as the driver of change in the areas of both distance learning and classroom learning. It has made educational collaborations a reality, irrespective of physical distance and may thus change the face of collaborative learning and assessment within the classroom as well. This study will focus on one such collaboration.

First, it will examine the use of a commercially available collaborative learning management tool (CLMT), Blackboard, and detail how it has been used to enhance the teaching of computer ethics professional issues Professional Issues in Software Engineering (PISE) at the University of Limerick in Ireland, at De Montfort University in England and at Sacred Heart University in the USA. Theis Blackboard system to be used in this experiment comprises an integrated set of tools: publishing tools that allow the course instructor to publish teaching materials, communication tools such as discussion boards, chat rooms and whiteboards to allow for asynchronous or synchronous student/student & instructor/student communication and statistical tools to gather data on student activity in the different functional areas of the CLMT.

Next, it will describe a multi-institutional collaboration. Using Blackboard, the authors of the study have created virtual groups comprised of students from all three institutions. Each group of students will undertake a collaborative project that analyzes a scenario that is based on an ethical dilemma. The authors will study the dynamics, interactions, critical thinking skills and evaluative techniques of the virtual groups alongside traditional non-virtual groups who are analyzing the same scenarios.

Although diverse problems have led each of the authors to Blackboard, the modules taught in the three institutions are very similar in nature. For example, Professional Issues in Software Engineering (PISE) (Limerick) is a final year undergraduate module for computer science students and focuses on the legal, ethical and social aspects of computing. Although the module has been taught for a number of years at the University of Limerick, increased student numbers have added to the pressure on the existing group teaching and assessment methods. The module taught at De Montfort University is entitled The Professional Context of ICT (PCICT). For the past three years, this has been offered to final year undergraduate Software Engineers as a compulsory module. This year, however, the module will be offered across two geographically dispersed campuses of the university as an option for all final year computing undergraduates. Aspects addressed within this module are almost identical to those contained within the PISE module detailed above. For the last three years, the course offered at Sacred Heart University, entitled Computer Ethics: Society and Technology has been developed and team-taught by a computer scientist and a sociologist. The marriage of these two fields is enhanced by the belief that technology does not exist in a vacuum but is developed for and driven by social forces. This course was designed as a writing course in the belief that students’ ability to communicate is critical to their professional success. Blackboard has been used to facilitate the group of twenty-five to engage in a weekly threaded discussion of ethics articles and issues, to create directed reading questions for in-class presentations and for the posting of paper topics and assessment rubrics that are used in the evaluation of written work. Professional issues is studied as a module within the larger scope of computer ethics.

Collaborative learning and critical thinking skills are very important in the field of computer ethics and professional issues. Group work and peer dialogues enable students to explore and critically analyze the ethical issues surrounding them as professionals involved in the design, implementation and use of ICT. Furthermore, research into the development of moral reasoning, a major pedagogical issue, has shown that collaborative learning improves students’ skills in this area. An analysis of learners’ learning is useful as faculty try to understand how best to engage their students. The authors’ intent is that this study will demonstrate that tools such as Blackboard facilitate collaborative learning and to that end, enhance students’ moral reasoning skills helping them to become better communicators, critical thinkers and ICT professionals.

REFERENCES

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[3] Veerman, A. & Veldhuis-Diermanse, E. Collaborative learning through computer-mediated communication in academic education. Paper presented at Euro CSCL conference, Maastricht, Holland. 2001.

[4] Hiltz, S.R. The Virtual Classroom: Learning without limits via computer networks. Ablex Publishing. Norwood, New York. 1994.

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[6] Peek, L.E., Peek, G.S. and Horas, M. “Enhancing Arthur Andersen Business ethics vignettes: group discussions using cooperative/collaborative leaning techniques.” Journal of Business Ethics, 13, 1994, pp. 189-196.

[7] Shepperd, J.A. “Productivity Loss in Performance Groups: A Motivation analysis”. Psychological Bulletin, 113(1),1993, pp. 67-81.

[8] Mäkitalo, K. Salo, P. Häkkinen, P. & Järvelä, S. “Analysing the mechanism of common ground in collaborative web-based interaction.” Paper presented at Euro CSCL conference, Maastricht, Holland, 2001.

[9] Hewitt, J. & Tevlops, C. “An analysis of growth patterns in computer conferencing threads”. In Proceedings of the CSCL Conference, C. Hoadley & J. Roschelle (Eds.) Dec. 12-15, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999.