IRLS520 Home

Last altered 5/17/02 Under revision. We'll be starting at the beginning of June, and everything you need to know will be emailed to you via the IrlsADMIN listserv (which all registered students are automatically added to). The coursepacks are available from the bookshop (however the computer systems that oversees this says that they are not, because it now is PreSession and these texts relate to Summer Session, but they're there). Any further questions you might have about registration etc. should go to the office (lhussey@u.arizona.edu).

Homepage for IRLS520 791 (Summer 2002) Ethics for Information Professionals

Note: This will be a virtual course taught on the Web.

Martin Frické

Material may be added or changed on a continuing basis. One file that will remain untouched throughout is that containing the course requirements.

Description

Ethics for information professionals is a recent and rapidly expanding field of study. Fortunately it does not require completely new techniques for the solution of problems in its domain. Ethics in general has been studied for thousands of years, and it has developed techniques appropriate for the study of ethical problems.

Ethics is concerned with notions like right and wrong, good and bad, and rights and responsibilities. One central area of ethics, known as normative ethics, studies which particular actions, eg. hanging murderers or censoring dangerous or pornographic books, are right or wrong. Normative ethics is a practical study: it concerns the morally good life, how to live well.

Information ethics is a sub-category of normative ethics which addresses practical ethical problems connected with information. Several are prominent: free speech, censorship, access to information, intellectual property, fair use, privacy, workplace issues, and so on.

Many organizations for Information Professionals publish codes of ethics. As examples, there is the American Library Association's Code of Ethics, American Society for Information Science Professional Guidelines, and there is the IEEE-CS/ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice. However, while such codes give us a set of principles to work with, they do not tell us how we are to go about implementing these ideals in our everyday practice.Such codes often do not clearly define the notoriously complex ethical concepts which they use. The ALA code, for example, uses such terms as : equity, fairness, freedom, rights, public interest, etc., yet it leaves us with a number of questions: What constitutes an "equitable" distribution? Under what conditions is something someone's "property"? How do we show respect for a "right"? Also such codes do not tell us what to do when (inevitably) various rights and interests conflict. So, for example, the ALA code does not tell us how to answer such questions as: How do we balance equity of access with protecting intellectual property rights? What if the intellectual freedom of one person creates a hostile atmosphere for others? What if our personal convictions conflict with the "interests of the institution" which we serve? In brief, a course that simply helped you learn how to implement a particular code of ethics, perhaps provided by a professional body you belonged to, would have limitations.

Our course will consider what ethical ideals should regulate the behavior of information professionals. Through our discussion of this question we will become better able to understand the rationale for the codes of ethics, and know how to revise them over time to keep pace with this rapidly changing field, and/or to develop specific ethical codes for our particular work environments.

Objectives

You will learn the basics of ethical theory and its application to problems in information access and dissemination. You will learn how to apply ethical codes in concrete cases You will learn how to develop your own personal and professional code.

Some important links

A student who registers in this course will be give an account with a User name and a password. They will then be able to access fuller versions of the following links (complete with full navigation facilities).

The present links point to briefer versions, to give intending students some idea of what is on offer.

Coursework and assignments

Course outline

Requirements

For more information, contact Martin Frické .

	Homepage for IRLS520 791 (Summer 2002) Ethics for Information Professionals Note: This will be a virtual course taught on the Web. Martin Frické Material may be added or changed on a continuing basis. One file that will remain untouched throughout is that containing the course requirements.

Description	Ethics for information professionals is a recent and rapidly expanding field of study. Fortunately it does not require completely new techniques for the solution of problems in its domain. Ethics in general has been studied for thousands of years, and it has developed techniques appropriate for the study of ethical problems. Ethics is concerned with notions like right and wrong, good and bad, and rights and responsibilities. One central area of ethics, known as normative ethics, studies which particular actions, eg. hanging murderers or censoring dangerous or pornographic books, are right or wrong. Normative ethics is a practical study: it concerns the morally good life, how to live well. Information ethics is a sub-category of normative ethics which addresses practical ethical problems connected with information. Several are prominent: free speech, censorship, access to information, intellectual property, fair use, privacy, workplace issues, and so on. Many organizations for Information Professionals publish codes of ethics. As examples, there is the American Library Association's Code of Ethics, American Society for Information Science Professional Guidelines, and there is the IEEE-CS/ACM Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice. However, while such codes give us a set of principles to work with, they do not tell us how we are to go about implementing these ideals in our everyday practice.Such codes often do not clearly define the notoriously complex ethical concepts which they use. The ALA code, for example, uses such terms as : equity, fairness, freedom, rights, public interest, etc., yet it leaves us with a number of questions: What constitutes an "equitable" distribution? Under what conditions is something someone's "property"? How do we show respect for a "right"? Also such codes do not tell us what to do when (inevitably) various rights and interests conflict. So, for example, the ALA code does not tell us how to answer such questions as: How do we balance equity of access with protecting intellectual property rights? What if the intellectual freedom of one person creates a hostile atmosphere for others? What if our personal convictions conflict with the "interests of the institution" which we serve? In brief, a course that simply helped you learn how to implement a particular code of ethics, perhaps provided by a professional body you belonged to, would have limitations. Our course will consider what ethical ideals should regulate the behavior of information professionals. Through our discussion of this question we will become better able to understand the rationale for the codes of ethics, and know how to revise them over time to keep pace with this rapidly changing field, and/or to develop specific ethical codes for our particular work environments.
Objectives	You will learn the basics of ethical theory and its application to problems in information access and dissemination. You will learn how to apply ethical codes in concrete cases You will learn how to develop your own personal and professional code.
Some important links	A student who registers in this course will be give an account with a User name and a password. They will then be able to access fuller versions of the following links (complete with full navigation facilities). The present links point to briefer versions, to give intending students some idea of what is on offer. Coursework and assignments Course outline Requirements