School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

INLS 584, Information Ethics
Fall 2009

Schedule

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Syllabus / Schedule / Assignments / Sakai site

Introduction to Ethical Reasoning

Session 1: August 25, Overview of the course; An exercise in ethical reasoning (Arson case)

Session 2: August 27, Cultural relativism; Subjectivism; Emotions

• Rachels, Chapter 1, What is morality? (key: sections 1.5 & 1.6)
• Rachels, Chapter 2, The challenge of cultural relativism (key: sections 2.2, 2.4, 2.8, & 2.9)
• Rachels, Chapter 3, Subjectivism in ethics (key: sections 3.1-3.4)
• Artz, J. M. (2000). The role of emotion in reason, and its implications for computer ethics. Computers and Society, 30(1), 14-16. [ACM Digital Library]

Session 3: September 1, Morality and religion; Egoism

• Rachels, Chapter 4, Does morality depend on religion? (key: sections 4.2 & 4.3)
• Rachels, Chapter 5, Ethical egoism (key: sections 5.2-5.4)

Session 4: September 3, Social contracts

• Rachels, Chapter 6, The idea of a social contract (key: sections 6.1, 6.3, & 6.5)

Session 5: September 8, Utilitarianism

• Rachels, Chapter 7, The utilitarian approach (key: section 7.1)
• Rachels, Chapter 8, The debate over utilitarianism (key: sections 8.1, 8.3, & 8.4)

Session 6: September 10, Absolute moral rules and Kant; Selection of issues to consider during course

• Rachels, Chapter 9, Are there absolute moral rules? (key: sections 9.2, 9.4, & 9.5)
• Rachels, Chapter 10, Kant and respect for persons (key: section 10.1)

Session 7: September 15, Alternative ethical approaches

• Rachels, Chapter 11, Feminism and the ethics of care (key: sections 11.1 & 11.2)
• Rachels, Chapter 12, The ethics of virtue (key: sections 12.1 & 12.2)
• Rachels, Chapter 13, What would a satisfactory moral theory be like? (key: section 13.4)
• Optional reading: Adam, A. (2000). Gender and computer ethics. Computers & Society, 30(4), 17-23. [ACM Digital Library]

Session 8: September 17, Applying moral theories as information professionals

• Smith, H. J., & Hasnas, J. (1999). Ethics and information systems: the corporate domain. MIS Quarterly, 23(1), 109-127. (Read pages 109-119 only.) [UNC libraries]
• Fallis, D. (2007). Information ethics for twenty-first century library professionals. Library Hi Tech, 25(1), 23-36. (Skim entire article; focus on two sections: The theories, and Limitations of the theories) [UNC libraries]
• Kizza, J.M. (2007). Ethics and the professions. In Ethical and Social Issues in the Information Age. London: Springer, 65-96. (Read sections 4.1, 4.2, and 4.4.1.) [UNC libraries]

Session 9: September 22, Values clarification

• Smith, M. (1977). A Practical Guide to Value Clarification. Lajolla, CA: University Associates.
• Chapter 1, The need for exploring values, p3-18 [Electronic reserves]

Session 10: September 24, Professional codes of conduct (Additional codes and other resources)

• ALA Code of Ethics. (1995, June 28). American Library Association. http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/statementspols/codeofethics/codeethics.cfm.
• ACM code of ethics and professional conduct. (1992, October 16). Association for Computing Machinery. http://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html.
• ASIS&T professional guidelines. Adopted 5/30/92. http://www.asis.org/AboutASIS/professional-guidelines.html.
• Buchanan, E.A., & Henderson, K.A. (2009). Professional ethics. In Case Studies in Library and Information Science Ethics. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 95-99. [SILS reserves - Z682.35 .P75 B83 2009; also available in the Resources on the class Sakai site]
• Huff, C. (1996). Unintentional power in the development of computer systems. Computers & Society, 26(4), 6-9. [ACM Digital Library]

• Literature review: Topic/question due
• Review of court cases: List of cases due
• Book review: Citation due

Issues in Information Ethics

The remainder of the course will be devoted to reasoning about moral issues of relevance to information professionals. The specific issues to be considered in the course will be selected and presented by the course participants. Key issues and possible readings are listed here:

• Information/data as intellectual property (copyright, moral rights of authors, open source content)
• Software as intellectual property (open source software, legal mechanisms for software protection)
• Information/software integrity/accuracy (professional responsibility for correct information/programs)
• Privacy (government surveillance, commercial surveillance, computer-mediated communication, exoinformation)
• Access to information/censorship (equitable access to information, censorship, freedom to read)
• Access to information technology (equitable access to computers and the internet, discrimination)
• Effects of computerization on the work environment (job displacement, deskilling, ergonomic issues, electronic monitoring)
• Effects of computer-mediated communication on understandings of identity and relationships
• Effects of computerization on democracy and government

Session 11: September 29, Music file sharing and intellectual property rights (Joe Caparo)

• Altschuller, S., & Benbunan-Fich, R. (2009). Is music downloading the new prohibition? What students reveal through an ethical dilemma. Ethics & Information Technology, 11(1), 49-56. [UNC libraries]

Session 12: October 1, Fan fiction and intellectual property rights (Sojourna Cunningham)

• Tushnet, R. (1997). Legal fictions: Copyright, fan fiction, and a new common law. Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Journal, 17(3), 651-686. [UNC libraries, via LexisNexis Academic; reprint available online]
• Burns, E., & Webber, C. (2009). When Harry met Bella. School Library Journal, 55(8), 26-29. [UNC libraries]
• Johnson, D. (2009). Make a copyright u-turn and 5 other audacious statements about copyright and educational fair use. Learning & Media, 37(2), 9-11. [UNC libraries]
• Griffis, K., & Jones, D.Y. (2008). Readers' advisory 2.0: Recommending fanfiction. Public Libraries, 47(6), 62-65. [UNC libraries]
• Videos of interest to this discussion:
  • Lessig, L. (2007, March). Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity. TED Talks. http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html.
  • Faden, E. (n.d.) A fair(y) use tale. Media Education Foundation. (Be sure to use the FBI Warning.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo.

Session 13: October 6, The ethical obligations of museums/archives in obtaining items of unknown origin (Tara Wink, Mike Brown)

• Schafft, G.E. (2004). From Racism to Genocide : Anthropology in the Third Reich. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Read Chapter 4: The discovery in the Smithsonian, pp. 84-88) [Google Books and on SILS Reserve - GN17.3.G3 S33 2004] [We will be using the situation described in this chapter as the basis for our case study activity -- please read this to be prepared for the in class activity.]
• Grose, T.O. (1996). Reading the bones: Information content, value, and ownership issues raised by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 47(8), 624-631. [UNC libraries]
• Preamble of the United Nations Ban on Illegally Obtained Cultural Property (sidebar). (2006, March 31). Issues & Controversies On File. Retrieved from Issues & Controversies database. [UNC libraries]
• Coggins, C. C. (1991). Review: The Ethics of Collecting Cultural Property: Whose Culture? Whose Property?, by Phyllis Mauch Messenger. Journal of Field Archeology, 18(3), 389-392. [UNC libraries]
• More...
  

Session 14: October 8, US patent law and infringement risks of software, with special attention to distributed projects (Cristobal Palmer)

• Though the basic citations for assigned readings are given here, be sure to see Cristobal's guide to the reading assignments [available in Sakai Resources, Materials for student-led sessions]
• Patent: Overview. (n.d.) Legal Information Institute (LII), Cornell University Law School. http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/Patent.
• Skim two patents, as suggested in reading guide
• Tysver, D.A. (2008). The history of software patents: From Benson and Diehr to State Street and Bilski. Bitlaw. http://www.bitlaw.com/software-patent/history.html.
• Samuelson, P. (2008). Revisiting patentable subject matter [Legally speaking]. Communications of the ACM, 51(7), 20-22. [ACM Digital Library]
• Graham, P. (2006). Are software patents evil? http://www.paulgraham.com/softwarepatents.html.
• Knuth, D.E. (1994). Letter to the Patent Office by Professor Donald Knuth. Reprinted in Programming Freedom, n11, February 1995. http://www.pluto.it/files/meeting1999/atti/no-patents/brevetti/docs/knuth_letter_en.html.
• Open Invention Network. http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/patents.php. (Read this page and skim the About OIN page.)

• Literature review: Annotated bibliography due
• Review of court cases: Annotated bibliography due

Session 15: October 13, Responsibility for security vulnerabilities of information systems (Matthew Belskie)

• Berinato, S. (2007, Jan. 1). Software vulnerability disclosure: The chilling effect. CSO Security and Risk. http://www.csoonline.com/article/print/221113. (Feel free to skip the section titled "From Buffer Overflows to Cross- Site Scripting".)
• Takanen, A., Vuorijärvi, P., Laakso, M., &Röning, J. (2004). Agents of responsibility in software vulnerability processes. Ethics and Information Technology, 6(2), 93-110. (Skim all of it, but please pay particular attention to pgs. 100-109 for a good discussion on the roles and phases involved with ethical vulnerability testing.) [UNC libraries]
• Zittrain, J. (2009). The Web as random acts of kindness. TED talks. http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_zittrain_the_web_is_a_random_act_of_kindness.html.

Session 16: October 15, The moral responsibilities of technology developers (Ketan Palshikar)

• Marshall, K.P. (1999). Has technology introduced new ethical problems? Journal of Business Ethics, 19(1), Fourth Annual International Conference Promoting Business Ethics, 81-90. [UNC libraries]
• Manders-Huits, N. (2006). Moral responsiblity and IT for human enhancement. Proceedings of the 2006 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (Dijon, France), 267-271. [ACM Digital Library]
• Sellen, A., Rogers, Y., Harper, R., & Rodden, T. (2009). Reflecting human values in the digital age. Communications of the ACM, 52(3), 58-66. [ACM Digital Library]

Session 17: October 20, Government surveillance and the USA PATRIOT Act (India Whedbee)

• Pikowsky, R.A. (2002). An overview of the law of electronic surveillance post September 11, 2001. Law Library Journal, 94, 601-620. (Feel free to skim the technical bits.) [UNC libraries]
• Beeson, A., & Jaffer, J. (2003).  Unpatriotic acts: The FBI's power to rifle through your records and personal belongings without telling you. American Civil Liberties Union. (Feel free to skim.) http://www.aclu.org/safefree/resources/16813pub20030730.html.
• The use and purpose of national security letters. Federal Bureau of Investigation. http://www.fbi.gov/page2/natsecurityletters.htm.
• Gellman, B. (2005, Nov. 6). The FBI's secret scrutiny: In hunt for terrorists, Bureau examines records of ordinary Americans. Washington Post, Section A, page 1. [Online, or via Lexis Nexis Academic]
• Security vs. liberty: The other war. PBS "America at the Crossroads" series. 2007. [FBI's PATRIOT Act abuse of National Security Letters and illegal NSA spying]. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6643235037263136894&ei=ogHdSqWaHoyQqAKIqIXiAQ&q=national+security+letters&hl=en&client=firefox-a#.
• Additional optional readings listed on "Effects of Computerization on Democracy and Government"

October 22: No Class; Fall Break

Session 18: October 27, Corporate surveillance of consumer behavior (Garnett Matney)

• Notes from "Naked in the Sunlight" [available in Sakai Resources - Materials for Student-Led Sessions]. Focus on:   "Knowing Even Where Your Shoes Are" (p25; case of Galeria Kaufhof clothings store's use of RFID tags), "Connecting the Dots" (p32), "Fano's Three Social Rules of Privacy" (p62),  the 1973 U.S. Department of Health Education, and Welfare "Fair Information Practice Principles" (p63), and "Ever Read Those 'I agree' Documents?" (p67).
  
• Garfinkel, S. (2000, Feb. 10). What they do know can hurt you. The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20000228&s=garfinkel.
• Rauhofer, J. (2008). Privacy is dead, get over it! Information privacy and the dream of a risk-free society. Information & Communications Technology Law, 17(3), 185-197. [UNC libraries]
• Skim the following:
  • Leavitt, N. (2002). Data mining for the corporate masses? [Industry trends]. Computer, May 2002, 22-24. [UNC libraries]
  • Surprising uses of corporate data mining. Research Pipeline Blog, Feb. 14, 2009. http://www.researchpipeline.com/wordpress/2009/02/14/surprising-uses-of-corporate-data-mining/.
  • Maxwell, C., & Gutowitz, H. (1997). Data mining solutions and the establishment of a data warehouse: Corporate Nirvana for the 21st century? First Monday, 2(5). http://outreach.lib.uic.edu/www/issues/issue2_5/maxwell/index.html.
  • Ad for selling video surveillance to a car dealership. http://www.videosurveillance.com/car-dealerships.asp.
  • Website analytics: Mining customer data for profit. WebMetro, July 14, 2008. http://www.webmetro.com/web-analytics/articles/news1detail1955.asp.
  • Web site analytics. Internet Retailer, July 2008. http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=26923.
  • Customer privacy. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_privacy.
  • Knights, M. (2006, July 4). Customer data abuse rife among UK companies. Silicon.com. http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39160080,00.htm.
  • Krebs, B. (2009, Oct. 19). ChoicePoint breach exposed 13,750 consumer records. Security Fix, Washington Post blog. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/choicepoint_breach_exposed_137.html.
    

• Book review: Outline of book due

Session 19: October 29, Control over one's online reputation (Johanna Cronin, Kjersti Kyle)

• Introna, L. D. (1997). Privacy and the computer: Why we need privacy in the information society. Metaphilosophy, 28(3), 259-275. [UNC libraries]
• Solove, D.J. (2007). Free speech, anonymity, and accountability. In The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet. Yale University Press. http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Future-of-Reputation/text.htm.
• Case to be discussed: The Stolen Sidekick page. http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/.

Session 20: November 3, Internet censorship (Petr Koppel)

• Goth, G. (2009). Traffic intelligence companies monitor censorship efforts. IEEE Internet Computing, 13(5), 7-9. [UNC libraries]
• Associated Press. (2009, Jun 23). Social networking Q&A. Socialmedia.biz. http://www.socialmedia.biz/social-media-policies/associated-presss-social-media-policy/.
• Kramer, S.D. (2009, Sep 27). WaPo's social media guidelines paint staff into virtual corner; Full text of guidelines. paidContent.org. http://paidcontent.org/article/419-wapos-social-media-guidelines-paint-staff-into-virtual-corner/.

• Literature review: Outline due
• Review of court cases: Outline due

Session 21: November 5, Net neutrality (Jordan Bross)

• Joch, A. (2009). Debating net neutrality. Communications of the ACM, 52(10), 14-15. [ACM Digital Library]
• Cooper, M., Kennedy, J., & Scott, B. (2006). Why consumers demand internet freedom: Network neutrality: Fact vs. fiction. Free Press. http://www.freepress.net/files/nn_fact_v_fiction_final.pdf.
• Wu, T. (2003). Network neutrality, broadband discrimination. Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law, 2, 141-178. (Focus on page 143-153 and 161-175.) Available from SSRN, at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=388863.

November 10: No Class; ASIST

November 12: No Class; ASIST

Session 22: November 17, The right to know, in relation to environmental issues (Max Felsher)

• Cox, R. (2010). Selection from Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [SILS Reserve - GE25 .C69 2010; copy of excerpt available in Resources folder on Sakai]
• Elia, J. (2008). Transparency and the right to know. In Vaccaro, A., Horta, H., & Madsen, P. (Eds.), Transparency, Information and Communication Technology: Social Responsibility and Accountability in Business and Education. Charlottesville, VA: Philosophy Documentation Center, 1-13. [Available in Resources folder on Sakai]
• Beierle, T. C. (2004). The benefits and costs of disclosing information about risks: What do we know about right-to-know? Risk Analysis, 24(2), 335-346. [UNC libraries]
• Additional resources available on the internet (skim for class):
  • RTKNet: The Right-to-Know Network. http://rtknet.org/
  • U.S. EPA's Right to Know site. http://www.epa.gov/epahome/r2k.htm
    

Session 23: November 19, The censorship of books (Gordon Jochem)

• Evans, G. E., & Saponaro, M.Z. (2005). Censorship, intellectual freedom, and collection development. In Developing Library and Information Center Collections. 5th edition, Library and Information Science Text Series. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 410-429. [Available in Resources folder on Sakai]
• Buchanan, E.A., & Henderson, K.A. (2009). Intellectual freedom. In Case Studies in Library and Information Science Ethics. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 23-29. [SILS Reserves - Z682.35 .P75 B83 2009; also available in Resources folder on Sakai]
• Review/skim additional websites of interest:
  • American Library Association page on intellectual freedom, http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/intfreedom/index.cfm
  • American Library Association Freedom to Read statement, http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/statementspols/ftrstatement/freedomreadstatement.cfm
  • Library Bill of Rights (ALA). http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/statementspols/statementsif/librarybillrights.cfm
  • Freedom to Read Foundation, http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/affiliates/relatedgroups/freedomtoreadfoundation/index.cfm
  • National Coalition Against Censorship, http://www.ncac.org/

• Book review: Outline of review due

Session 24: November 24, The effects of computers on workers' privacy and health interests (Winnie Titchener)

• Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. (1993-2009). Fact Sheet 7: Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring. http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs7-work.htm.
• SpectorSoft. (2008). Spector CNE Investigator: Employee Investigation Software. (Skim materials on all tabs.) http://www.spectorcne.com/intro.html.
• Stanton, J.M., & Stam, K.R. (2006). Information security technologies and operations: Protection technologies for use on the inside. In The Visible Employee. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 39-62. (Read pages 52-58.) [Google Books preview available via UNC library catalog; copy of relevant section available in Sakai Resources]
• Fleischer, C.H. (2004). Employee privacy. In Employer's Rights: Your Legal Handbook from Hiring to Termination and Everything in Between. Naperville, IL: Sphinx Pub., 259-274. (Skim this chapter.) [E-book in UNC libraries]

November 26: No Class; Thanksgiving Break

Session 25: December 1, Anonymous social networking and its effect on race relations (Shawn Guy)

• Berlet, C. (2001, April 28). When hate went online. Adapted from a paper presented at the Northeast Sociological Association Spring Conference. (Browse.) <http://simson.net/ref/leaderless/berlet_when_hate_went_online.pdf>.
• Thiesmeyer, L. (1999). Racism on the Web: Its rhetoric and marketing. Ethics and Information Technology, 1(2), 117-125. [UNC libraries]
• Weckert, J. (2000). What is so bad about Internet content regulation?. Ethics and Information Technology, 2(2), 105-111. [UNC libraries]
• Young, J. (2008, Mar. 28). How to combat a campus-gossip Web site (and why you shouldn't). Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(29), A16. http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Combat-a-Campus-Goss/14266/.
  

Session 26: December 3, Truth and fiction in online representations of self (Forest Doyle)

• Horner, D.S. (2001). Cyborgs and cyberspace: Personal identity and moral agency. In Munt, S. (Ed.), Technospaces : Inside the New Media. London: Continuum, 71-84. [Available in Resources folder on Sakai]
• McKenna, K.Y.A. (2007). Through the Internet looking glass: Expressing and validating the true self. In Joinson, A.N. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 205-221. [Available in Resources folder on Sakai]
• Stone, A.R. (1996). In novel conditions: The cross-dressing psychiatrist. In The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 65-81. [Available in Resources folder on Sakai]
• New York Times. (2007-2009). Times Topics: Megan Meier. http://tinyurl.com/y9m2beh. Scroll down to find the collection of articles about the case. Feel free to read as many articles as you like, but definitely read “Vague Cyberbullying Law” (Sep 8, 2009) and “Guilty Verdict in Cyberbullying Case Provokes Many Questions Over Online Identity” (Nov 28, 2008).

• Last day to turn in scenarios and responses to scenarios

Session 27: December 8, Course wrap-up/review; Carolina Course Evaluation

• Introna, L.D. (2007). Maintaining the reversibility of foldings: making the ethics (politics) of information technology visible. Ethics and Information Technology, 9(1), 11-25. [UNC libraries]
• Optional: Buchanan, E. (2008). On theory, practice, and responsibilities: A conversation with Robert Hauptman. Library & Information Science Research, 30(4), 250-256. [UNC libraries]

December 17, 8am: Major paper due (literature review, review of court cases, book review)

Syllabus / Schedule / Assignments / Sakai site

The INLS 584 website, UNC-CH, Fall 2009, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Address all comments and questions to Barbara M. Wildemuth at wildem@ils.unc.edu.
This page was last modified on December 3, 2009, by Barbara M. Wildemuth.