AUTHOR

Jesús Díaz del Campo and Porfirio Barroso, (Spain)

ABSTRACT

In the information era, the power of the so-called ICT (Information & Communication Technologies) has greatly increased the responsibility of each citizen within the global society. Information professionals are not unaware of this fact. We have always defended the need to include humanistic courses, and, specifically, professional ethics and deontology, in the curricular content of future information specialists. In today’s world, with the challenge of globalization, in order for us to respond as individuals and as a society, that need has grown. The work of information professionals has an impact on all systems, whether social, economic or political. Thus, they must be conscious at all times of the implications of every type derived from their activities.

The aim of this paper is, first, to stress the fact that universities continue to be the setting for the preparation of the human resources that our society needs, and that this, and this alone, remains their basic task, despite their often having opted for a criteria of technical training with a very scarce humanistic component and lacking in social consciousness. Looking toward the future, it is difficult to imagine that the ethical problems derived from the use of the ICT are going to disappear or even diminish over the coming years. Thus, the new information professionals of the 21st century will have to continue to address all these questions, making the presence of professional ethics and deontology in their curriculum nearly indispensable.

Moreover, we consider the teaching method known as “saturate the curriculum” to be positive but insufficient. It may prove highly beneficial that students of the information sciences reflect on ethical dilemmas or situations that arise in the course of their more technical subjects. They would thus begin to familiarize themselves with these questions. However, if this is not backed up later on by the inclusion of a more specific course, their ethical training at the time of graduation will clearly be deficient. There are several reasons for this. To begin with, the instructor of this more technical course probably lacks the necessary philosophical background to be able to properly explain to his or her students how to make an ethical decision, on what criteria to base it or which theories are more suitable in each case. In fact, an inadequate explanation of all these questions could even be counterproductive. On the other hand, the explanation of isolated cases without including them in a more solid theory and, ideally, a complete course, with sufficient time to develop a subject matter that provides a minimum knowledge of the most important ethical issues, might create a greater confusion among the students with regard to these matters.

This brings us to another important question, whether or not it is appropriate to include a section dedicated to ethical theory in the course subject matter. Opinions concerning this point range from proposals to reduce the course to lessons on applied ethics, completely ignoring philosophical theory, to others supporting a program based on the ideas of the major philosophers, keeping the elements of informatics deontology to a minimum. We consider an intermediate pathway to be the best, dividing the program into two part to include both aspects, necessary, in our opinion, for the student of information engineering to achieve the proper ethical training. As would appear to be obvious, the only way to accomplish this goal is to offer a course devoted to this topic.

We analyze here the theory of one of the authors whose inclusion in our pedagogical proposal we consider most suitable because of the emphasis he has placed on the power of the ICT and on the responsibility derived from this circumstance for mankind. We refer to Hans Jonas who, in his work The principle of responsibility states, among other things, that wherever there is power, there is also responsibility. His affirmation is based on a reflection on the relationship between man and nature, a relationship that had not previously been considered in an ethical context. However, with the arrival on the scene of the ICT, nature, which we had exploited uncaringly until now, has been rendered fragile, vulnerable. This signifies that man himself is vulnerable. Therefore, our obligation is to conserve it; that is our responsibility, a responsibility that is indefinite. Given the material power conferred by the ICT on the individual even to destroy humanity, he must feel responsible not only for his own behavior and its most direct consequence, but for possible indirect and much more distant effects and consequences as well.

Thus, we consider Jonas’ work to be especially applicable for teaching a course on professional ethics and deontology within the framework of the present information era. After analyzing his theory, in the final section of our paper, we propose several ways of applying it to the course, especially with regard to case studies and the explanation of some of the topics that are most frequently included in the study program and in informatics deontological codes.

The ultimate objective is to establish a new approach, a new teaching model adapted to the present circumstances, and we think that Jonas offers an ideal one.

AUTHOR

Aaron Ben-Ze’ev (Israel)

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the nature of emotions in online relationships. It first compares some basic features of emotions in offline and online circumstances and then examines whether emotions in online relationships are similar to those in offline relationships or whether we are witnessing the emergence of new types of emotions.

In offline circumstances, emotions are typically generated by perceived significant changes, their focus of concern is personal and comparative and its typical object is a human being. Typical emotional characteristics are: instability, great intensity, partiality, and brief duration. Basic components are cognition, evaluation, motivation, and feelings. In addition to emotions, there are other affective phenomena, such as sentiments (enduring emotions), moods, affective disorders, and affective traits (Ben-Ze’ev, 2000).

Emotions in cyberspace in many aspects resemble those of offline circumstances. Emotions in cyberspace share similar features to offline emotions-although some of these features may be more or less noticeable online. Three such major features are change, instability, and the availability of an alternative.

Emotions typically occur when we perceive positive or negative significant changes in our personal situation, or in the situation of those related to us. A positive or negative significant change is one that significantly interrupts or improves a smoothly flowing situation relevant to our concerns. Like burglar alarms going off when an intruder appears, emotions signal that something needs attention. When no attention is needed, the signaling system can be switched off. We respond to the unusual by paying attention to it.

Cyberspace is full of changes and new opportunities-in this sense it is indeed an exciting place. The changes are of less personal significance since the available opportunities are not designed for a specific person and if you miss one opportunity, many others are still available. The presence of so many changes and the active role that imagination plays in online relationships can somewhat compensate for the normalization effect in which a change becomes normal and hence unexciting. The physical absence of the partner in online relationships, further removes certain constraints upon our imagination and the normalization effect is weaker.

Our psychological reality consists of both stable and unstable events. The successful combination of the two gives us both emotional excitement and a sense of calmness and security-both are crucial for a happy and healthy mental life. Cyberspace is more unstable, dynamic, and transitory than our real environment is. Thus we would expect to find that transitory emotions are more dominant while enduring affective attitudes are more rare. If in our regular everyday life we often look for changes in order to make our life more exciting, in cyberspace we often look for stability in order to facilitate calmer and enduring online relationships. The lack of stability in cyberspace often generates more intense and more transitory emotions. This is true of both positive emotions and negative emotions.

Emotions occur when a change is evaluated as relevant to our personal concerns. Emotions serve to monitor and safeguard our personal concerns; they give the eliciting event its significance. Emotional meaning is mainly comparative. The emotional environment contains not only what is and what will be experienced, but also all that could be or that one desires to be experienced. For the emotional system, all such possibilities are posited as simultaneously available and are compared to each other. The emotional meaning of online relationships is also comparative by nature: it relates, first of all, to our offline environment. The belief that cyberspace provides us with better alternatives is crucial in generating intense emotions. This may somewhat compensate for the less personal and practical nature of cyberspace.

The comparison underlying emotional significance encompasses the mental construction of the availability of an alternative situation. The more available the alternative-that is, the closer the imagined alternative is to reality-the more intense the emotion. Cyberspace does not merely significantly increase the availability of desired alternatives, but it is actually an alternative, available world, which runs parallel to the actual one. Sophisticated technology allows a rapid shift from one world to another. Cyberspace is becoming the next best thing to being there, and in some respects it is even better than the world we actually live in. In offline circumstances, we live in a real world and fantasize about virtual events that will improve the world; in cyberspace, we live in a virtual world and we attempt to incorporate in it more and more pieces of actual reality.

Emotions are functional and rational in many offline circumstances. Their functionality and rationality is less evident in cyberspace because of its novel nature and the fact that people have not yet learned how to cope with it. This may change as this medium evolves as we become more able to combine online with offline relationships.

Although emotions are largely spontaneous, they can be managed to some extent. This management is easier in cyberspace, as the imaginative aspect is more central in generating online emotions, and in many cases it is easier to manage our imagination-and thus our cognitive evaluation-than to change actual events.

The new kind of interpersonal relationships generated by online communication seems to have a profound impact upon our emotional experiences. Such relationships do not eliminate emotional experiences, but rather intensify them. So far, we have not observed the generation of new kinds of emotions, but this possibility should not be ruled out. It should be noted that the development of new types of emotions and the increase in the complexity of existing animal emotions has characterized our evolution from non-human animals to humans; nevertheless, in this evolutionary process none of the animal emotion ever completely disappeared. It is not clear yet whether online relationships will constitute such significant changes in our emotional life as to generate new types of emotions.

REFERENCES

Ben-Ze’ev, A. (2000). The subtlety of emotions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

AUTHOR

Professor Chuck Huff, St Olaf College, USA

ABSTRACT

No matter what career they choose, almost all of our students will spend their work lives in organizations. Our goals in teaching computer ethics to these students should be informed by what we know about how ethical computing decisions are made in organizations. Toward that end, I will bring together in this talk three strands of scholarship that rarely speak with each other: social science research on technology in organizations, psychological research on moral reasoning and behavior, and curricular standards and pedagogy in computer ethics. I will conclude that we can teach in a way that supports moral and ethical behavior, but that our teaching goal will need to be broadened beyond our usual focus on the individual student to include changing the culture of computing in organizations.

LOCATION:
Universidade Lusiada, Lisbon, Portugal

DATES:
13 to 15 November 2002

HOSTED BY:
Faculty of Business Universidade Lusiada, Lisbon, Portugal

IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, UK
Research Center on Computing and Society, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
Software Engineering Ethics Research Institute, East Tennessee State University, USA

CONFERENCE DIRECTORS:
Dra I Alvarez, Universidade Lusiada, Portugal
Professor Terrell Ward Bynum, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
Professor J A A Lopes, Universidade Lusiada, Portugal
Professor Simon Rogerson, De Montfort University, UK

SPONSORS:
International Society for Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT)
The Institute for the Management of Information Systems (IMIS)

Continue reading “ETHICOMP2002 – Lisbon, Portugal”

AUTHOR

Dr Grazyna Zurkowska-Krakowska and
Witold Sikorski Wydawnictwo
MIKOM

ABSTRACT

The paper refers to the topics concerned with information technologies in education. The authors cover four groups of problems starting from general topics to a publishing example. The basic aim is to analyse how information technologies influence education process and perception of information by the pupils. It is very crucial question as young people start to use computer before they start to read. And so in the future they may be not good readers at all.

1. Information technologies in education

Information technologies in education are present in every field. It is not only teaching computers, it is teaching any subject using computers. It basic change that is observed in the recent years. The point is to use new technologies as a tool, not forgetting about basic subjects. Often the teachers and pupils are fascinated by technology forgetting what it serves.

2. Impact on traditional perception (reading, writing, verbal communication)

Information technologies have significant impact on the perception of young people. Contact with the screen since childhood may result in reading problems. Computer, television, games are all visual – serve pictures not words. Thus create another perception style diminishing the role of reading and mind training.

3. The role of education in the field of information technologies in schools

It is very important for the schools to create a proper approach of young people towards information technologies. The school should educate in information technology itself, teach to use it as a tool in various subjects and show other means of communication stressing its values. The school should teach information technology as a part of human culture that may not dominate over other elements of culture and education.

We would like to assist in an open model of education by publishing books that develop the habit of critical thinking and show electronic media as the problem-solving tools. It is important to deliver to the school children good quality information concerning new technologies and show them how to benefit from it. The cultural values should not be lost in the electronic way of education. We are especially sensitive about that.

The aim is to publish books devoted to virtual education as show in our books alternative educational strategies. Inviting experienced authors and young generation teachers helps to share their experience and creates expectation towards a network-based education. Those publications cover broad spectrum of topics and wide scale of young people needs and expectations. They should be taught how to make sense out of what they find on the net and show them how to evaluate it and master it. Offering them a broad spectrum of priceless resources of information on electronic media will help to make them more critical and more understanding and therefore more prepared to the modern challenges.

4. Textbooks and other publication as a source of computer education

Computer education has to be well presented to the public. Teacher requires a good textbook – not just another computer manual. The pupil needs to get practical examples showing where to use the tools, in place of mere presentation how to use them. Publishing company which we represent tries to fulfil that mission publishing simple exercise books with lots of practical examples, academic books for the students and books presenting the coexistence of traditional cultural values with new information technologies.

Education we are thinking of and participating in is much broader then school education. The electronic culture that we are facing now is a challenge to a society as a whole. We believe that the society has to acquire the new ability to manage with electronic media. It is still sort of terra incognita we have to cope with. We want to participate in shaping a new electronic culture by providing information on electronic media on many different levels. Publishing very carefully chosen books allows taking the responsibility for the shape of our future digital culture. We provide people of different level of knowledge with quality support and help them to establish proper skills of getting and creating information. Being the medium of information we should protect our reputation and authority publishing the books that are practical and at the same time credible. How we achieve this?

One of the methods is to present information in a way that users of any skill-level could understand and apply. To expand their knowledge and help them to understand not only how a system, a program or an application work but also how to put them to work in different environments and circumstances. Additionally they should know what does electronic way of communication mean for human activity and human life, both social and personal.

The technical contents of our books have always hidden message that is as follows: “the most important factor in a processing of information is a human being”. Conveying such a message we participate in building a high level electronic culture trying to show to our readers not only pragmatic side of information but also its moral and human side. We encourage readers, especially young ones, to take an advantage of the new technologies and new media believing that digital culture we are creating now calls for a new fundamental reorientation in thinking. We would like to shape an active approach of the users to the information. The new electronic culture will succeed only if it provides real values.

AUTHOR

Sara Wilford
CCSR
De Montfort University
Leicester
UK

ABSTRACT

How does awareness of the issues affect individuals’ perceptions of privacy? It can be argued that the level of awareness has a direct impact on the importance individuals place on personal privacy. During a recent pilot study which was undertaken as part of a larger piece of research, it was noticed, that even within a small sample, the issues of awareness and perception came to the fore. The evidence collected from this study indicated a correlation between an awareness of the issues, and individuals’ perceptions of the need and importance of privacy. This correlation suggests that the higher the levels of awareness, the greater the importance is given to privacy protection.

This paper will seek to explore the extent to which privacy awareness and privacy perceptions are influenced by each other. It will discuss awareness of both the negative and positive abilities of information and communications technology (ICT), and will place an emphasis on the possibilities for privacy invasion and the potential effect this may have on individual perceptions in the future. What may not be seen as important now may eventually become a major issue of concern, by which time, legislation may already be in place and any change or reversal of policy seen as unworkable or impractical. The future for a free society may well be threatened by a lack of importance placed on privacy issues today.

Privacy has long been an area of debate and disagreement. Many advocates of privacy protection cite the threat to civil liberties and the danger of a panoptic society among the reasons for that need (Lyon 1994, Introna 1999, Spinello 1998). However, there is a need to establish the perceptions of individuals as to the extent of protection required within society. Ignorance of the issues of privacy and perceived need may lead to protection being inadequate or inappropriate. The importance of raising awareness within society has never been greater.

ICTs present new threats and dangers to privacy which may lead to the erosion of our rights and liberties without the awareness within society of the dangers the loss of privacy may engender. These dangers may include, extensive dossiers on many or all members of society, coercion of ‘undesireables’ which could include political opponents, state control reaching Orwellian proportions and the loss of free speech due to the potential for constant surveillance.

What is suggested here is that by ensuring a general awareness of the threats to society that ICT brings, there is a greater possibility that many of the more extreme scenarios can be avoided. However, the low publicity, back door approach to legislation currently being used by the British Government and others to introduce controls such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill 2000, may mean that decision makers are already aware of the potential unease such regulations may produce within the citizenry, and are choosing to play down and minimise exposure and debate.

It is also important to be aware of positive issues which may be ignored or overlooked and which are important to maintain a balanced approach to privacy protection. Positive aspects are those such as access to a wide range of information via the Internet, increases in the speed of service provision and the maintenance of up-to-date records.

The quality of available information and its positive or negative emphasis may have an impact on the perceptions of individuals. Information needs to be delivered in an unbiased way and awareness of issues is not merely a case of digesting the facts as they are presented. We obtain much of our information about prominent issues from media exposé and commercial marketing ploys, neither of which can be said to be unbiased or always particularly informative of the actual issues. Government papers and official documents often prove lengthy, difficult to interpret, and available only to those who already know where to look. Therefore, an increase in the general awareness of privacy issues may only be possible when individuals have sufficient unbiased information presented in an accessible format.

Differences in culture and language may also impact on awareness. Often direct translations may produce slightly different meanings than that originally intended. Therefore, awareness between cultures within the same societal group may differ and need to be addressed.

Analysis of previous work has highlighted a lack of study of individual perceptions on privacy issues. This paper introduces the background to work in progress on individual perceptions of privacy within organisations. The research will enable some reflection to be made on societal trends in perceptions. It will also highlight the problems of privacy policy formulation for a society in which the majority are poorly informed, and therefore largely ignorant of the potential dangers the unbridled use of ICTs may bring.