NSF grant IIS-0724894
Ethical Decision-Making
• Critical competency
• Used to make design decisions
• Need to consider all stakeholders
Iterative Development Process
Courses
Cases
Simulation
Iterative Development Process
Information
Ethics
Courses
Cases
Simulation
Iterative Development Process
Ethics of IT in a
Multicultural
World
Courses
Cases
Simulation
Iterative Development Process
Courses
Cases
Simulation
Iterative Development Process
Paper-Based
Cases
Courses
Cases
Simulation
Iterative Development Process
Case Builder
Courses
Cases
Simulation
Iterative Development Process
Courses
Cases
Simulation
Iterative Development Process
Courses
Cases
Simulation
Face-to-Face
Iterative Development Process
Courses
Cases
Simulation
Online
Process of Simulating Cases
Scenario
Brainstorm
A
B
Decide
Scenario
Brainstorm
Decide
Role 1
Role 2
Role 3
Research Question
• What did students learn from using the
educational simulation as part of the
information ethics course?
Data Collection and Analysis
• 20 of 22 students (91%) completed an
open-ended questionnaire after the course
– e.g., “What did you learn in this class?”
• Thematic analysis was used to analyze the
answers to 13 relevant questions
Results: Ethical Decision-Making
Understanding
Self
Importance
Others
Complexity
Applications
Results: Understanding Own EDM
Understanding
Self
Others
“The biggest thing was really
learning what my own values
Importance are. I've Complexity
always had strong
values, but understanding the
different theories and hearing
different perspectives made me
understand WHY I value the
Applications
things that I value, and made me
appreciate my values more.”
Results: Ethical Decision-Making
Understanding
Self
Importance
Others
Complexity
Applications
Results: Understanding Others’ EDM
Understanding
Self
Others
“In real ethical dilemmas you
Importance
Complexity
are forced to work with other
people. Without that interaction
the course would be missing a
big piece of how ethics work.”
Applications
Results: Ethical Decision-Making
Understanding
Self
Importance
Others
Complexity
Applications
Results: Importance of EDM
“I think [the class] did a
Understanding
great job of presenting
the
multiple options
Self
Others
and then how the
decision could then
affect others' options.”
Importance
Complexity
Applications
Results: Ethical Decision-Making
Understanding
Self
Importance
Others
Complexity
Applications
Results: Complexity of EDM
Understanding
“Information technology
presents more ethical
Self
Others
considerations than I
would have thought.”
Importance
Complexity
Applications
Results: Ethical Decision-Making
Understanding
Self
Importance
Others
Complexity
Applications
Results: Applications of EDM
“[The cases] did aUnderstanding
great
job of promoting small
and large groupSelf
discussion Others
about ethicists in realworld situations, and did
so in a more interesting
Complexity
way thanImportance
any other way
I've seen material taught”
Applications
Simulation
• Support face-to-face and online collaboration
– Face-to-face, share a computer
– Face-to-face, use multiple computers
– Online
Case Builder
• GUI-based
• Allows any student or instructor to develop
cases without requiring technical expertise
• Ensures the sustainability of the project by
providing an ongoing source of new cases
Take-Away
• The simulation was effective
• EDM is a collaborative activity
• Collaborative learning is an effective approach
for promoting learning of EDM
• Students can learn ethical decision-making by
playing and building cases
Thank you!!! Any questions???
• This material is based upon work supported by
NSF grant IIS-0724894
• Related publications:
– Fleischmann, K.R., Robbins, R.W., and Wallace, W.A. 2009. Designing
educational cases for intercultural information ethics: The importance of
diversity, perspectives, values, and pluralism. J. Educ. Libr. Inf. Sci. 50, 1
(Jan. 2009), 293-302.
– Fleischmann, K.R. and Wallace, W.A. 2010. Value conflicts in
computational modeling. Computer 43, 7 (Jul. 2010), 57-63.
– Fleischmann, K.R. 2010. "Preaching What We Practice: Teaching Ethical
Decision-Making to Computer Security Professionals." Lecture Notes in
Computer Science 6054: 197-202.
– Fleischmann, K.R., Robbins, R.W., and Wallace, W.A. 2011. Collaborative
learning of ethical decision-making via simulated cases. Proceedings of the
6th Annual iConference.