Ethics Education Workshop Presentation - Kelly Laas

Summary of Paper

Building Online SEE Resources: What works, where can improvements be made?

When looking at designing online resources for science and engineering ethics (SEE), developers should consider to what extent their web sites can fulfill the often-cited five goals set by the 1980 Hastings Center Working Group for teaching ethics in higher education. Online readings, case studies, discussion forums, and tutorials should help individuals in: 1) stimulating the moral imagination, 2) recognizing ethical issues, 3) developing analytical skills, 4) eliciting a sense of moral obligation and personal responsibility, and 5) tolerating and resisting disagreement and ambiguity.1 As we look to develop the next generation of SEE online resources, we must consider how new web design methods and technologies can be used to meet these goals.

Current SEE online resources have already met these goals in many respects, both by using the web to disseminate information through case study libraries and tutorials, and in a more limited way, by providing opportunities for discussion among experts and users of these resources. In talking with students and faculty, and from my own experience using online resources, the following attributes seem to be extremely important to ensure the usefulness of these sites:

• Perceived relevancy of information – web sites are up to date, materials are related to user’s own subject area (cases specifically for mechanical engineers, etc.). Includes quality, supporting texts such as commentaries by “experts in the field.”
• Ease of navigation – users can quickly navigate through site and find relevant case studies, articles, etc.2
• Low intimidation factor – the site has a clean design, is easy to use, large blocks of text are broken up.
• Potential for feedback/connection to others – site includes way to ask questions, receive help, and participate in discussions.

In gathering examples for this paper, I reviewed over thirty publicly available resources dealing with professional ethics. These resources can roughly be divided into two categories: asynchronous tutorials either to be used alone or in conjunction with a face to face course, and resource centers/case libraries such as the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science (OECES). The following is a review of some examples of these resources, as well as a number of suggestions about how the next generation of resources might be expanded upon and improved.

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Along with the suggestions made in the introduction of this paper, the SEE resources reviewed could be improved in the following four areas:

• Treatment of technology as “alive” – there is a constant need to update, maintain, and add to SEE resources– relationship b/w new technologies and learning as co-evolutionary.
• Relevance & quality of resources – efforts should be made to solicit new material, and review quality of material uploaded.
• Scope – look at ways to allow users to personalize site, as done in the CITI course. Possibly of focusing searches to materials most relevant by discipline (biology/chemistry/etc) or by role (student/instructor/PI).
• Interactivity – look at new ways to thoughtfully exploit new technologies to promote an interactive learning environment.

Developers must continue to maintain and improve the SEE web resources that have already been created, while continuing to look for new opportunities to expand the abilities of these sites. Overall, the types of online ethics resources currently available tend to put the users in a passive rather then an active role. Online tutorials, case libraries, and ethics resource centers are well adapted for introducing users to the ethical issues inherent in scientific research and engineering, and are to some extent able to meet the goals mentioned in this paper’s introduction. However, new web technologies have the potential for allowing users to actively engage in ethical decision-making processes in ways that were formerly not possible in an online environment. The next generation of SEE resources should utilize these opportunities in a way that further fulfills the main goals of teaching ethics in higher education.