Digital Ethics Canvas: a Guide for Ethical Risk Assessment and Mitigation in the Digital Domain
CĂ©cile Hardebolle1, Vladimir Macko2, Vivek Ramachandran1, Adrian Holzer2, Patrick Jermann1
1Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland; 2Université de Neuchâtel (UniNE), Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Ethical concerns in the digital domain are growing with the extremely fast evolution of technology and the increasing scale at which software is deployed, potentially affecting our societies globally. It is crucial that engineers evaluate more systematically the impacts their solutions can have on individuals, groups, societies and the environment. Ethical risk analysis is one of the approaches that can help reduce “ethical debt”, the unpaid cost generated by ethically problematic technical solutions. However, previous research has identified that novices struggle with the identification of risks and their mitigation. Our contribution is a visual tool, the Digital Ethics Canvas, specifically designed to help engineers scan digital solutions for a range of ethical risks with six “lenses”: beneficence, non-maleficence, privacy, fairness, sustainability and empowerment. In this paper, we present the literature background behind the design of this tool. We also report on preliminary evaluations of the canvas with novices (N=26) and experts (N=16) showing that the tool is perceived as practical and useful, with positive utility judgements from participants.
Instructors´ expectations and objectives for integrating sustainable development and ethical issues into the curriculum
Tauno Aki Tepsa, Maisa Tuulikki Mielikäinen, Juhani Angelva
Lapland University of Applied Sciences, Finland
The integration of sustainable development and ethical issues into the curriculum is increasingly important in higher education. The study surveyed 17 instructors in ICT engineering education at the <university, region> involved in curriculum development to explore their expectations and objectives in integrating sustainable development and ethical issues into their courses. Although most instructors had a good understanding of sustainable development and ethical issues, not all saw them as relevant to their courses. Those who did incorporate these themes focused on topics such as energy conservation, social sustainability, and sustainability and ethics in solutions. However, almost half of the instructors did not plan to incorporate ethical issues into their courses, and those who did focus on copyright, artificial intelligence, and source criticism. Instructors expressed the need for themed discussion sessions and expert lectures to enhance their knowledge and skills. The study's results suggest the need for more effective strategies to incorporate sustainable development and ethical issues into ICT education. The findings of this study could support academics in their ongoing efforts to incorporate ethical and sustainable development concerns into their curricula.
Effect of engineering education on students’ ethical attitudes
Ulla-Talvikki Anniina Virta, Hannu-Matti Järvinen
Tampere University, Finland
Integrating teaching about ethics in engineering degree has challenges: Teachers focused on the degree core topics may lack the expertise to handle the ethics, and teachers with ethics background may struggle to connect the ethics teaching to the field specific issues. In addition, a portion of the students themselves may consider the non-core topic to be unnecessary or unmotivating, which poses further challenges for the teaching. In the paper, we explore the ethical attitudes of students based on a survey conducted to information technology, electrical engineering and computer sciences students at our university.
The survey received 224 responses. We compare the attitudes of students depending on their progress of the studies and whether they have had any ethics teaching included in their studies. In addition, discuss the students’ attitudes compared to ethical attitudes of the graduated engineers from survey to members of a national engineering association.
As the goal is to understand how to better integrate the ethics teaching to the education, we also discuss the students’ views how the teaching should be integrated and if students’ previous encounters with ethics teaching affect their opinion on the matter.
Drawing from SEFI ethics knowledge to support eco-ethics education within the European University of Technology
Jye Benjamin O'Sullivan, Shannon Chance
TUDublin, Ireland
We are leading a project called Ethico that is part of the European University of Technology (EUt). Ethico aims to design and promote the uptake of innovative, ecological ethics for technological education.
The proposed paper will briefly summarize the aims and structure of the Ethico project, and then focus on the work completed as part of the teacher training module developed in Cluj, from the 7th to the 9th of March 2023. The work drew its conceptual framework from the short abstracts currently available in the Engineering Ethics Education Handbook. The handbook is under development by SEFI’s Ethics special interest group, who shared the content with us. We drew particularly from Theme 3, covering Teaching Methods for Engineering Ethics Education, for the work session in Cluj.
From these abstracts, we designed and piloted tested a teaching training course with flexibility to apply to diverse cultural and administrative conditions. We explored how we could apply the literature review and dialogical/reflective chapters of the EEE Handbook, as well as of three of the Student-Centred Learning approaches (case studies, challenge- and problem-based learning, and Virtues Practice Design), with very promising results.
This paper will examine the ethical models engaged with and the teaching models developed. It will discuss the data collected as an evaluation of the intensive study period. Then, it will outline and problematise our proposed module for eco-ethics in technological education, highlighting the key tensions for implementation in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary contexts.
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