Place: NTNU, Trondheim, Norway (Aud. D111 & D113)
Time: May 23rd – 27th plus june 1st 2005

Lecturer: Charles Ess, distinguished research professor at Interdisciplinary Studies at Drury University, USA and professor II at NTNU (Globalization and Program for Applied Ethics).

The course is open to PhD and master students, and our targetgroup is students from technological, humanistic and social science studies.
The main part of the graduate course will be held from monday 23rd to friday 27th, and will continue on june 1st (wednesday) which is reserved for individual/group presentations and summaries.

7.5 credits (studiepoeng) will be given for completed course (requires writing and submitting one essay by the end of the course).

Description / Goals of the course:
The course will examine

A) important elements of computer ethics, including notions of professional responsibilities of programmers, HCI designers, etc. (including Bernd Carsten Stahl’s notion of “reflexive responsibility” as developed in his book Responsible Management of Information Systems).
Here we will develop a basic “ethical toolkit” that will provide participants with a range of terms and approaches to ethical analysis and decision-making with regarding to common issues in computer and information sciences.

B) how cultural values and communicative preferences are embedded in the design and implementation of Computer-mediated Communication technologies – and how these frequently mean the failure of systems to function as intended. (We will include here Knut Rolland’s case-study of “boomerang effects” in IT, along with some of the examples drawn from CATaC research [CATaC = Cultural attitudes towards technology and communication].)
Here we will explore a basic set of conceptual tools for analyzing various dimensions of cultural values and communicative preferences (beginning with Hall and Hofstede, and drawing on especially recent research reported in the CATaC conferences), in order to develop guidelines for “best practices” in design and implementation of Information and Communication Technologies.
A key element here is the connection between the basic ethical orientations in Part A with the ethical responsibilities both to clients and prospective users of ICTs to respect autonomy and cultural identity (specifically, by designing in “culturally aware” ways that shape ICTs to fit with users’ cultural values and communicative preferences, rather than expect users to fit their values and preferences to those otherwise embedded in ICTs if they are designed “unaware” of cultural values and communicative preferences).

C) how the cultures of the humanities and the sciences, including computer and information sciences, as academic disciplines may be bridged in ways parallel to the bridging explored in Part B – and exemplified in the dialogues and collaborative work to be fostered in this course from the outset between participants from these disciplines, i.e., as we seek to bring ethics together with computer and information science.
Our hope here is to build bridges between these disciplines that will foster further interdisciplinary collaboration – both within and beyond the frameworks of the Applied Ethics Programme.

Course fee: 600 NOK (covers participation and course material)
Registration deadline: May 10th, 2005

[Detailed schedule and reading list (preliminary)]

Please click here to register.