ABSTRACT. A fiction story about Valentina

ABSTRACT.

ABSTRACT. As physicist Casimir said: "Whatever mad and perverted ideas may take hold on these in power, [...] there will always be technicians found who will be willing to oblige, who will become fascinated with the technical problem and who do not think about the consequences". The story of programmer and robot designer Daedalus makes no exception.

ABSTRACT. Please see the extended abstract in the attached file.

ABSTRACT. As advances are made in artificial intelligence and machine learning, the distance between the activity of the designers/programmers of the system and the behavior of the system grows. This gap, between human action and the effects and consequences of that action is not new, but emerging computing paradigms are presenting this challenge with a new urgency, and revealing the poverty of our tools for reasoning about what human responsibility means in a world with ubiquitous artificial agents. This paper proposes a new addition to our existing collection of frameworks for considering this issue.

ABSTRACT. This paper reflects phase two of an on-going research that discusses the importance of modifying pedagogy to include professionalism and ethics component in an undergraduate senior capstone class. It discusses how the author designed and taught a capstone collaborative project to provide an experiential learning education environment that she believes prepared the students to deal with challenges faced in today’s technology related businesses. Various studies highlight that teachers are “change agents” that can create a classroom environment where students will be better prepared to face the challenge and have the ability to critically thinking for solutions in a field that is constantly changing. In his article “Why Teachers Must Become Change Agents”, Fullan (1993) notes that though many teachers enter the field with a moral purpose, the ability of teachers to serve as change agents relies on four core capacities: personal vision, inquiry, mastery, and collaboration. Further, he argues that these capacities are not developed individually, but must be nurtured and consciously developed in a professional setting. Another paper in the same year by Little (1993), discusses professional development programs to serve as one method to nurture these essential capacities. The main reason to highlight Little’s work is that while discussing professional development, she points out to the relevance in considering of how teacher training programs might help computer science educators develop the capacities of change agents. While modifying pedagogy and teaching capstone class, the author took into account the four capacities mentioned above. The theoretical foundation, the National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) framework of this research, was presented in two conferences (Ethicomp, 2015 and Experiential Learning Institute Conference, 2016). This paper, (phase two) uses same NSEE framework to describe the development, proposed implementation, feedback of the students, lessons learned and challenges faced during the project. The project involved a collaborative work between the author and the grant recipient (co-author) in the Forest Service context. Nineteen computing (computer science and information systems) students worked with a real world application of the Forest Service in its development phase. The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass 193 million acres. Major divisions of the agency include the National Forest System, State and Private Forestry, Business Operations, and the Research and Development branch . The application, Design and Analysis Toolkit for Inventory and Monitoring (DATIM) is being developed for the United States Forest Service Inventory and Analysis (FIA) national program. The DATIM project is a collaborative effort between the National Forest System (NFS) and Forest Service (FS) Research & Development (R&D), Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA), and Ecosystem Management Coordination (EMC) staff. The DATIM core team is comprised of both R&D and NFS staff from resource inventory and forest planning programs. The DATIM project has four modules : 1) Design Tool for Inventory and Monitoring (DTIM) assists national forests and grasslands and other users in determining objectives, questions, and metrics for monitoring plans; 2) Analysis Tool for Inventory and Monitoring (ATIM) enables users to analyze vegetation data to derive. estimates of current conditions and trends on the Forest and surrounding landscapes; 3) Spatial Intersection Tool (SIT) enables users to add spatial attributes to DATIM datasets for use in ATIM; 4) DATIM Compilation System (DCS) enables users to add supplemental Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) attributes to DATIM datasets for use in ATIM. Learning outcomes of a capstone class is that by the end of the class, student should have: • an ability to design, implement and evaluate a computing-based system, process, component, or program to meet desired needs; • an ability to use current techniques, skills, and tools necessary for computing practices; and • a better understanding of professional, ethical and social responsibilities. Nineteen students were divide into three groups where the overall objective was to: 1) review the DATIM functionality from a non-FS perspective; 2) provide feedback to the DATIM developer on application testing and user-friendly of the interface; 3) and make suggestions to the DATIM team for the improvement of the application for release to the non-FS audience. The Eight Principles of Good Practice for All Experiential Learning Activities by the NSEE are: Intention; Preparedness and Planning; Authenticity; Reflection; Orientation and Training; Monitoring and Continuous Improvement; Assessment and Evaluation; and Acknowledgment. These were used to provide a rich insight while analyzing the design and teaching of the capstone class. The findings of this case study show several benefits: 1) student’s feedback and suggestions are being used in a real business setting; 2) created an experiential learning environment; 3) the collaborative work led to student employment ; 4) modified pedagogy prepared computing students with skills that will help them when facing challenges in computing field; 5) success of the class strengthened the argument that pedagogy encompassing professionalism and ethics is important; 6) pedagogy needs to also emphasize team work, communication skills, leadership skills, critical thinking solving problems and finding alternative solutions. References Fullan, M. (1993). Why teachers must become change agents. Educational Leadership, 60(6), 12-17. Kesar (2016): “Including Teaching Ethics into Pedagogy: Preparing Information Systems Students to Meet Global Challenges of Real Business Settings” , ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society - Special Issue on Ethicomp–Volume 45 Issue 3, September 2015, Pages 432-437 Kesar (2016): “Educational experiential learning environment classroom: modifying pedagogy capstone classroom”, Experiential Learning Institute Conference, June 2016, Bryce Canyon, UT Little, J. W. (1993). Teachers’ professional development in a climate of educational reform. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 15(2), 129-151. The National Society (2009). Guiding Principles of Ethical Practices. DOI= http://www.nsee.org/guiding-principles

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forest_Service and http://www.fs.fed.us/

ABSTRACT. Web 2.0 has rapidly increased individuals’ power to transmit information. Today, those who do not have the skills to edit a website can send data about their organization and its members via a weblog or content management system (CMS). Thus, the end users (i.e., not the professionals who manage information systems) can directly send information to customers (or the persons involved) using their own words. When end users send information, they must be careful that they do not send it such that the people being mentioned are identified as individuals. It is often difficult for organizations to choose what kind of information is beneficial for the people involved in them. Since the Japanese government passed the Personal Information Protection Law in 2003, which became fully effective in 2005, almost all organizations in the country must seek permission from those who might be photographed before publishing personally identifiable information (PII) on their websites, especially if the people in question are children. For example, if an organization is a school, it is critical to confirm with parents that is it okay to publish information about their children (before doing so). The need to share information among members within organizations has increased, and it is very important to consider how members can effectively create, choose, and share information. These matters (i.e., creating, choosing, and sharing information) are the same for online interactions; for example, in regard to the social networking services (SNS) of organizations (whether they are formal or informal organizations), mailing lists (MLs), and bulletin board systems (BBS). We also need to examine members’ behavior in order for information to be more effectively shared among members or across an entire organization for the purpose of online knowledge management. Such behavior is “performed by the employee as a result of personal choice” (Organ, 1988) and is known as organization citizenship behavior (OCB). Organ (1988) defined OCB as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization.” We can find OCB in both enterprises and communities, along with a relationship between enterprises and customers, or schools and parents. Websites are significant forms of media for schools and businesses alike. Nowadays, many schools transmit data via information technology (IT). Every local government in Japan contains a management organization called an education board. Education boards manage each prefectural and municipal school (mostly primary and junior high schools); some that oversee municipal schools have rules for operating websites. All municipal primary schools in T City, the location of our case study, have websites. Education boards operate weblogs on which school staff post announcements about events, notes about children’s activities, children’s physical and emotional conditions, and messages for parents (for example, “Please bring a water bottle to school because it will be hot”). The staff (who post information and report to the school principal) assume that the readers of the weblogs are parents. The staff always post and share information with parents about their children. K Elementary School, located in T City, has a weblog. The principal is the main staff member who posts information (however, other staff have as well). In Japan, most teachers are aware that parents are members of parent-teacher associations (PTAs), and consider parents’ perspectives when posting material. Many children’s mothers and fathers both work in T City. Because they are very busy at home, they cannot hear about a story of children’s school time and cannot check on their children very well. Therefore, the principal of K Elementary School posts information for parents every day and without difficulty. Both he and other staff are always careful that they do not post any personal data belonging to children and related individuals. In January 2016, the number of children who had the flu began to increase. From that point onward, the principal began to post photos each day of a whiteboard, which contained the number of children who had attended school on that particular day (regardless of whether they had the flu). Moreover, along with every photo, he commented on the state of the children in a specific class in which many students had the flu. Sometimes, he posted that there was a class to leave early the all children and the class would close the next day. Of course, he never posted information of particular child. Detailed information sent directly by e-mail to the parents’ e-mail address only that class. Therefore, nobody of parents (exception the parents of children in that class) could not identify an individual or a class. These comments were very helpful, not only for parents the closed class or the flu children in the other class, but also for all members of the school. These statements helped most parents anticipate how many children in each grade had the flu, and the extent to which it was spreading throughout the school. If the number of children with the flu increased in a particular grade, then parents (especially mothers) prepared for when their children might catch the illness; if their children were sick, it was possible for parents to have a day off from work. However, some parents with children whose classes had been suspended speculated which children had brought the flu from other schools, and which children had caused “classes to be suspended.” The other parents complained to the principal that: “It is not good that all parents can see which classes have many sick children on the school website.” The principal was performing OCB when he posted information on the state of classes in which children had the flu. However, when parents complained, the OCB became negative behavior. The principal apologized, and posted the following comment: “I will make posts that carefully note individual information” (despite that he did not publish data on individuals). In this case, we can see that OCB can change to negative behavior (dysfunction of OCB) when speculating on all PTAs. Furthermore, it may harm many parents, even if they are receiving helpful information. In addition, those posting information on websites should consider how readers will think about it. Even though staff (teachers) post helpful knowledge (not PII) when performing OCB, some external members (i.e., parents) regard it as a kind of PII. My case study suggests that posting indirect individual data may have bad effects on the organizational behavior of PTAs. In addition, masked data may become to personally identifiable data and violate someone’s privacy out of internal information. This case may not match the circumstances of ordinary businesses and companies. Many customers or members within an organization may be interested in individual information. However, we should be aware that OCB can become negative behavior for some members, depending on the information being dealt with (especially when it is similar to individual information).

Reference Organ, D. W. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: The good soldier syndrome. Lexington Books/DC Heath and Com.

ABSTRACT. This study examined the influence of improvisation on student engagement while enrolled in an ethics in cyberspace focused course at a medium sized university in the northcentral United States. Participants completed a 41-item pre and post survey developed and tested for reliability and validity by Gunuc & Kuzu (2015). The study sought to learn if incorporating a teaching technique where the major concept is that the point of concentration requires close attention to the problem rather than to the individuals who are addressing the problem might result in greater student engagement, a critical attribute for success in the workplace. Improvisation, said to be ‘intuition guiding action in a spontaneous way,’ was the teaching technique explored in this study with undergraduate students. Most participants were in IT-related degree programs. A cybertechnology ethics course was the experiment forum. Ninety students were participants; three sections of thirty students. Five improvisation-based activities were used approximately every three weeks during the one-semester course. As the controlled variable, the following four improve activities “One Word at a Time/One Sentence at a Time,” “Speech Tag,” “Freeze Tag” and “Gibberish Expert Interview.” The fifth activity will be a student choice from these and one or two other improve techniques previously tested in classrooms elsewhere. Activities followed as reported by Berk, R. A., & Trieber, R. (2009, pp. 29-60). The timing of each activity coincided with a content knowledge review quiz. The pre- and post- measure was a Student Engagement Scale (SES) by Gunuc & Kuzu which examines campus and class engagement and specifically the affective, cognitive, and behavioral components of class engagement. Approximately one week prior to the first activity and one week following the fifth activity participants completed the SES using an online survey tool and were provided time in the same classroom where the activities had occurred. January 2017 evaluation of the results follows the practices consistent with Student Engagement Scale (SES) by Gunuc & Kuzu. As part of a Society of Teaching of Psychology compendium of scales, Kevin Zabel and Amy Heger from the University of Tennessee report “the items of the SES were derived through previous measures of engagement and qualitative pilot interviews, as well as based in an underlying theoretical perspective. Reliability for the overall SES is excellent (α =.96), as it is for each of the six smaller factors as well (α’s range from .81 to .91).”. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report (Gallup, 2013), only thirteen percent of employees are engaged at work. As employers press higher education institutions to equip students with skill sets needed in today’s workplace, classroom instructors reach for techniques that might accomplish multiple goals simultaneously, such as those that reinforce content knowledge, build critical thinking, and at the same time reinforce various ‘soft skills’ such as being an engaged employee. Those faculty teaching students studying information technology (IT) have perhaps a particularly challenging job teaching ‘soft skills’ given that, stereotypically, IT students have been portrayed as introverted, non-communicative or withdrawn. Interestingly, the use of the term ‘soft skills’ has found push-back amongst some recruitment groups arguing that the implied “squishiness” undermines their known importance, suggesting ‘non-technical skills’ be used (Adler, 2014). Undoubtedly many IT students are also outgoing and expressive, yet we find employers in U.S and European countries alike report a desire that recent college graduates possess more ‘soft skills’ (Higson, 2008). Experimenting with teaching techniques with IT career-track students enrolled in a course specific to ethics in cybertechnologies provides a unique opportunity to learn how what happens in the classroom might translate to greater engagement and the skills that follow. Discovering how to influence engagement while in college is crucial given that Gallup’s recommendation to employers for accelerating engagement is to “select the right people.” Obviously, making direct linkages between classrooms engagement and workplace performance is fraught with uncontrolled variables, however the importance of active engagement does translate into the workplace. Gallup researchers found the those scoring in the top half on employee engagement nearly doubled their odds of success compared with those in the bottom half in a 2012 study of 1.4 million employees across 49,928 work units. Work units in the top quartile of employee engagement outperformed in customer ratings, profitability, and productivity at 10, 22, and 21 percent respectively above those in the bottom-quartile units. Moreover, this top quartile of engaged employees saw less turnover, less absenteeism, fewer safety incidents, and 41% fewer quality defects. The study findings may help inform the value of incorporating improvisation as a teaching technique in relationship to increasing student engagement. The work believes that engagement is a behavior that derives internally but has significant external measures, as noted by Gallup. The study of cybertechnology ethics is perhaps an excellent forum through which employing improvisation activities may result in moving the student engagement skill sets forward. Results are forthcoming.

ABSTRACT. No Man’s Sky is an open world space procedural exploration game which allows players to traverse space in space ships, land on and explore planets. A group of archaeogamers (archaeologists interested in video games for varying reasons) decided to treat the game as an archaeological site, and within the No Man’s Sky Archaeological Survey explore, catalogue findings, and analyse objects and constructs within the game from an archaeological perspective. One of the aspects of this activity was to create a Code of Ethics – this paper describes the creation of the Code, the difficulties in implementation of the Code, and offers some recommendations to game developers who wish to encourage similar archaeological exploration within their own games.

ABSTRACT. Video games have an increasingly pervasive reach in modern society. While many people do not actively identify as gamers, a large number play games on their computers, phones, or online. This influx of players highlights the fact that gamers are not simply young white men playing games in their parents’ basement; gamers are a diverse group. Unfortunately, when discussing gamers, many fall back on a stereotype or idealization of what a gamer is, ignoring the diversity in the community of gamers. This poses a significant ethical problem. By assuming, even unconsciously, that all gamers fit a particular mold, designers run the risk of ignoring important social factors that impact the experience of players. Ultimately, this can result in neglecting their ethical duties to treat players and potential players justly.

In this paper, I focus on the responsibilities to players that game designers have while creating a game. In particular, I emphasize the ways in which players’ identities affect their game experience and the entailing responsibilities this places on designers. These responsibilities emerge in different aspects of the game design. First, there are questions involving content, such as what the plot is and how the gameworld or setting is designed. Second, there are questions about the structure and mechanics of the game; this involves both character design and abilities as well as what a player needs to be physically able to do.

Talk of ethical obligations concerning game content generally focuses on video games which have violent or ethically questionable actions as a part of the narrative; there is concern over whether we should avoid creating or playing such games due to effects on our moral character. However, my concern is broader than this. Both designers and players approach games from their own particular cultural standpoint. Since these can be diverse, a designer cannot simply assume that all players have similar backgrounds to each other or to the designer. I argue that there is a moral imperative to consider the likely effects of design choices on particular types of players. I focus on examples involving race and gender to argue that players cannot necessarily separate their own social characteristics from how they interact with the gameworld, nor should we require it; rather, designers have an obligation to consider how their plots and worlds will be received by different players.

Structural concerns arise for both characters and players. I consider a number of questions related to avatar design and creation; in particular I examine the ways in which designers affect who engages with a game by choices related to avatar customization. There are thus ethical ramifications of making it difficult to create a non-white avatar, say, even if the avatars are purely cosmetic in nature. I argue that these sorts of cosmetic design decisions are unduly neglected in philosophical discussions of video game design.

A second set of structural concerns pertains to the players of the games rather than their characters. In designing for today’s gamers, designers need to consider the effects of various disabilities on a player’s ability to engage with games. We are seeing an increased awareness of this with the rise of subtitle options and color-blind modes in many games. However, there are a significant number of instances where a fairly minor change could make a game far more accessible to a group of players; I discuss when a designer has an obligation to do this.

The previous issues occur in all video games, however, multiplayer games present additional ethical challenges for designers. As in single-player games, designers have the ability to create the framework within which players act. However, in multiplayer games designers cede some of the control over a player’s game experience to the other players. While players operate within the constraints created by the designer, there is no guarantee that they will interact in the ways a designer prefers or even intends. Players thus share ethical responsibilities with designers in these circumstances. Nevertheless, I argue that designers must carefully consider how their games facilitate various sorts of interactions and whether there are ways in which their design promotes or frustrates abusive player behavior. To highlight this issue, I consider a number of ways in which designers have attempted to meet these responsibilities in dealing with player chat.

Ultimately, as a deontological ethicist, I argue that designers cannot simply ignore players’ ends in the pursuit of profit or in order to please another group of players. Note that this does not imply that all players’ desires will be granted; their desires cannot be ignored, but they may be outweighed by other factors. For instance, although designers are obliged to consider how their games will affect players, this does not mean that they cannot make players uncomfortable. However, they should be making players uncomfortable for reasons related to the game, not due to other factors; a player who is uncomfortable because your game forces them to confront the horrific effects of racism is not being mistreated. A player who is uncomfortable because you have made every non-white character in your world inherently less intelligent than white characters almost certainly is being mistreated.

I make a similar argument with regard to player capacities: while designers are not required to make their games equally accessible to every potential player, they should carefully consider whether there are small changes which might render a game more accessible. Ultimately, I argue that there is a distinction between changes which can be made without fundamentally compromising the nature of the game and changes which would require a fundamental alteration. It may not be possible to make a first-person shooter without running the risk of certain players becoming motion sick. It is almost certainly possible to make a role-playing game accessible to deaf players.

As video games flourish, designers have a responsibility to treat players and potential players justly. In particular, we should avoid replicating or reinforcing existing injustices from the actual world. By designing solely for straight white male gamers we replicate our society’s power imbalances unnecessarily and penalize players for not matching this stereotype. Design choices must be made consciously and with an awareness of their disparate effects on different groups of players. In particular, designers have a duty to consider whether particular design choices are necessary for the game or whether they are a product of unconscious assumptions. Ultimately, as all players likely have a desire to enjoy the games they play, designers should not place unnecessary and unintended barriers to that enjoyment.

ABSTRACT. See submission of extended Abstract.

ABSTRACT. This study suggests that self-tracking in a private setting will lead to shifting understandings in professional care. In order to attain more insight into these shifts, this paper seeks to lay bare the promises and challenges while staying close to the everyday professional experience of the physician. Our objective is twofold. First, to offer an analysis of how medical doctors evaluate self-tracking methods. To this aim, in-depth interviews with general practitioners (GPs) and cardiologists have been conducted in Flanders, Belgium. Second, to explore the anticipated shifts that digital self-care will bring about in relation to our findings and those of other studies. Our research findings show a nuanced understanding of the potentials and pitfalls of different forms of self-tracking. The dialogue between our dataset and the existing literature sketches a fine-grained image of digital self-care.

ABSTRACT. A revision to Japan’s Act on Protection of Personal Information (APPI; Act No. 57 of 2003) was passed in September 2015. This act generally moved further in authorising the economic exploitation of personal information, rather than improving privacy protection. However, the revised act does include some restrictions on business operators’ handling of sensitive personal data. The third paragraph of Article 2 of the revised act defines sensitive data not just via a list (such as the EU laws have) but more broadly as personal data with which extra care must be taken to avoid unjust discrimination, prejudice or other detriment against a data subject giving a non-exhaustive list including race, creed, social status, medical records, criminal records and damage suffered by crimes. However, data sensitivity is a new concept for ordinary Japanese people, and thus it may be hard for them to understand what types of personal data will be granted these extra protections. In addition, attitudes toward sensitivity of personal data may vary between different cultures. As part of cross-cultural exploration of the interpretation by ordinary people of data sensitivity between several countries including Japan, Spain and Sweden, the authors have administered a survey to Japanese people about their attitudes toward sensitivity of personal data. In addition to illuminating the general issue of sensitivity of personal data, this study is intended to provide policy recommendations for effective implementation of the new Japanese legislation.

The questionnaire for this study was developed by the authors in February 2016, and an online survey using it was conducted in March 2016 in collaboration with a research company. Out of a thousand responses, 931 were valid. The attributes of those who provided valid responses (hereafter, respondents) are described in Table 1. Among them, 385 (41.4%) had heard the term sensitive data or sensitive personal data in the context of privacy or personal data protection.

Table 1. Attributes of respondents (Number (%))

For statistical analysis, respondents were required to provide their personal attributes including gender, age, occupation, highest completed educational level and personal yearly income level (before tax). After responding to several preliminary questions, respondents were required to read a brief (263 words) description of sensitive data, written by the authors based on the relevant paragraphs of Directive 95/46/EC, Japanese Industrial Standards and the revised APPI. They were subsequently asked to describe what they thought ‘sensitive’ meant with respect to personal information. After that, respondents were asked to evaluate the degree of sensitivity of the 91 types of personal data listed in Table 2 using a four-point Likert scale. If a particular type of information was not applicable to a respondent, he/she was encouraged to still try to evaluate the sensitivity of that personal information as if it existed.

Table 2. List of personal data investigated

The responses to the open question “What do you think ‘sensitive’ for ‘sensitive data’ means after reading the explanation about sensitive data in the previous page?” shows that a significant number of respondents did not comprehend the meaning of ‘sensitive’ even after reading the explanation. This is demonstrated by the outcomes of sensitivity evaluations of personal data; the sensitivity of financial-related personal data such as a credit card number, a bank account balance, a bank account number, a basic pension number and a taxpayer number received a higher evaluation than that of data such as ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, medical records, etc. which are usually considered sensitive because they are likely to cause discrimination and prejudice against data subjects. These are consistent with the authors’ findings about Japanese attitude toward personal data protection and privacy (reference data will be provided in the full paper), and can be considered to reflect Japanese social environment where the myths of a homogeneous country and of an irreligious (or at least highly religiously tolerant) society are widely accepted.

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (0.996) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (Chi-square (4095) = 79676.52, p<0.01) showed the adequacy of the data collected through the survey for a factor analysis. As a result of the analysis of the survey outcomes adopting the principal factor method and promax rotations, thirteen factors were extracted as shown in Table 3. On the other hand, academic achievement record, educational institution attendance, employment record, marital status/history, communication meta-data and communication contents data didn’t have significant factor loadings (0.4+) for any of the thirteen factors.

Statistical tests, including one-way ANOVA and independent-samples t-tests, on the thirteen-factors structure demonstrated significant differences, at five per cent level, in factors 5, 9 and 13 between genders. It was also demonstrated that, on the whole, the younger respondents were, the more they tended to highly evaluate sensitivity of personal data. Detailed outcomes of statistical analyses will be described in the full paper.

Table 3. Thirteen factors

The study has also revealed some necessary revisions of the questionnaire to conduct cross-cultural investigations of data sensitivity. In particular, a six-point Likert scale should be adopted rather than a four-point one, because a ceiling effect was found in many of personal data types investigated. The description about data sensitivity should also be improved so that respondents’ comprehension of the legal usage of the term ‘sensitivity’ would be enhanced.

(To look at the tables, please open the attached pdf file.)

ABSTRACT. The use of social media and mobile data for mental health monitoring raise new ethical questions. This paper presents research on the one research institute’s current research programme regarding these applications and uses of technology. eHealth and mHealth for mental healthcare and suicide prevention is an increasing area of focus for mental health research and funding. Researchers argue that these emerging technologies represent a promising new approach (Perry et al 2016), however there are considerable gaps in the evidence for the effectiveness of these technologies, as well as their stability (Larsen et al 2016a; Larsen et al 2016b). Research is currently being carried out to build capacities in evidence-based interventions for digital mental health. Contemporary smartphones currently come equipped with a range of sensors to measure movement, location, sound, proximity to others, and other information about a person and their embodiment. Previous research has suggested that sensor data can be used to identify mood states or transitions between mood states particularly in mood disorders (Burns et al 2011; Torous & Powell 2015), however further research is needed to provide evidence of the effectiveness of such tools and for interventions on that basis. The area of exploratory research and technology that we consider is the monitoring of social media or mobile phone sensor data in order to identify or diagnose mental illness, or to identify an increase or change in symptoms. However, this paper is not focused on the feasibility and success of such approaches, but instead on the ethical dimensions of such uses of sensors and passive data collection, in terms of both research and in terms of the rollout of interventions to a general population (Giota & Kleftaras 2014). It pays particular attention to the resistance of research participants to surveillance of this kind, and broader questions of privacy and user-provider relationships in the context of dataveillance. It considers multiple questions of ethics in digital mental health, but connecting these ethical issues to broader questions about big data, health, responsibility and embodiment. Methodologically the research presented is a qualitative study grounded in the ethics literature, comprising field observation in multiple research settings, alongside semi-structured interviews with researchers, research participants, those with lived experience of mental illness, and other stakeholders including activists and advocates in the area of mental health in the Australian context. It also will include survey questions or focus group questions about ethics and acceptability built into the design and evaluation of individual research projects. Ethicists and medical practitioners identify legal and ethical issues in real-time passive data collection, including patient privacy through potentials for reidentification and locational awareness (Meurk et al 2014), data management and anonymization (Armontrout et al 2016), obtaining adequate informed consent and minimising intrusiveness (Pisani et al 2016). Our research presents additional concerns, including the impersonal nature of the interventions and engagement, and concerns about the frictionless and non-transparent nature of passive data collection. The research presented will address multiple ethical questions including the perceptions of acceptability of monitoring for research participants (including the reasons given by those who declined to participate), duty of care standards and norms in digital research and digital mental health products, algorithms and accountability, privacy, the ethics of profiling and targeted messaging in digital mental health, the ethics of symptom or illness detection, and the ethics of intervention in the context of user/organisation relationships (or the lack thereof. From the perspective of the field of digital ethics, the research aims to identify key ethical issues for the provision of mHealth and eHealth for mental health, presents the findings of a qualitative and ethnographic study in this research setting. Finally, in consultation with researchers, research participants and other stakeholders, we identify potential solutions or ways to ensure considerations of digital ethics are built into the design of current and future research and rollout planning. The research, conducted internally at a leading mental health research institute in Australia, aims to develop an approach to ethical decision-making that is responsive to the rapidly changing capacities in this area of research and technology design, and sensitive to social change and contemporary debates around privacy, power and surveillance in the conduct of research using big data and machine learning approaches. The paper argues for the importance of listening to the concerns of participants in the practice of research.

References

Armontrout, J., Torous, J., Fisher, M., Drogin, E., & Gutheil, T. (2016). Mobile Mental Health: Navigating New Rules and Regulations for Digital Tools. Current Psychiatry Reports, 18(10). http://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-016-0726-x Burns, M. N., Begale, M., Duffecy, J., Gergle, D., Karr, C. J., Giangrande, E., & Mohr, D. C. (2011). Harnessing Context Sensing to Develop a Mobile Intervention for Depression. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 13(3), e55. http://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1838 Giota, K. G., & Kleftaras, G. (2014). Mental Health Apps: Innovations, Risks and Ethical Considerations. E-Health Telecommunication Systems and Networks, 3(3), 19–23. http://doi.org/10.4236/etsn.2014.33003 Larsen, M. E., Nicholas, J., & Christensen, H. (2016a). Quantifying App Store Dynamics: Longitudinal Tracking of Mental Health Apps. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 4(3), e96. http://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.6020. Larsen, M. E., Nicholas, J., & Christensen, H. (2016b). A Systematic Assessment of Smartphone Tools for Suicide Prevention. PLOS ONE, 11(4), e0152285. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152285 Meurk, C., Hall, W., Carter, A., & Chenery, H. (2014). Collecting real-time data from substance users raises unique legal and ethical issues: reply to Kuntsche & Labhart. Addiction, 109(10), 1760–1760. http://doi.org/10.1111/add.12640 Perry, Y., Werner-Seidler, A., Calear, A. L., & Christensen, H. (2016). Web-Based and Mobile Suicide Prevention Interventions for Young People: A Systematic Review. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 25(2), 73. Pisani, A. R., Wyman, P. A., Mohr, D. C., Perrino, T., Gallo, C., Villamar, J., … Brown, C. H. (2016). Human Subjects Protection and Technology in Prevention Science: Selected Opportunities and Challenges. Prevention Science, 17(6), 765–778. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-016-0664-1 Torous, J., & Powell, A. C. (2015). Current research and trends in the use of smartphone applications for mood disorders. Internet Interventions, 2(2), 169–173. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2015.03.002

ABSTRACT. Abstract

For the past eighteen years, we have maintained a collaborative effort with students and teachers of the Julia de Burgos Elementary School in North Philadelphia designed to overcome some of the obstacles to technological inclusion and educational progress that affect young students from low-income families. Julia de Burgos is a school in a predominantly Hispanic and economically disadvantaged neighborhood, with many students that come from families in which English is not the first language in the home. Nearly ten years ago, we reported on this effort [Xxxxxxxxxx 2008] at a moment when the eighth-grade school children of Julia de Burgos had just provided dramatic “proof of concept” of an ambitious framework to facilitate their completion of the multi-disciplinary exit project required of each student to qualify for graduation from elementary school. This effort involved having a team of Yyyyyyyyy University undergraduates travel with me to Julia de Burgos three mornings a week for most of the school year to present a compact curriculum of mathematics, science, and computing to each of the six eighth grade classes at the school. Paradoxically, it was simultaneously a moment of deep discouragement in terms of the future prospects for collaboration. A sea-change had occurred with regard to the curriculum and the freedom with which teachers could utilize technology to help prepare their students for high school and the world beyond. Whereas the period on which we reflected in [Xxxxxxxxxx 2008] had been characterized by a degree of openness and experimentation in interpreting the curriculum, and teachers had been free, to a certain extent, to take initiatives that reflected their understanding of the complexion and situation of their students, the new dispensation was one in which the atmosphere in the school and in each of its classrooms was determined by the sense that the school was destined to fare poorly in the new regime of high-stakes exams. Although the requirement of the eighth grade exit project was not immediately rescinded, the idea of continuing to implement it had unquestionably become an unaffordable luxury for schools like Julia de Burgos It became clear to all of us that, henceforth, virtually all resources would have to be directed toward preparation for and improvement in the school’s scores on the standardized tests mandated under the federal legislation known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). And, with the connivance of a majority of antipathetic state legislators, for whom the City of Philadelphia and its schoolchildren were unredeemable pariahs, those resources would be tightly restricted. The goal, occasionally stated with commendable frankness, was to strangle and ultimately kill free public education for those unfortunate enough to need it. In these circumstances, we wondered what was left for us collectively to pursue in the name of our collaboration? There was only the mutual recognition that the connection between the university and the elementary school was too valuable to abandon and that both communities were committed to make extraordinary efforts to insure that this did not happen. At that moment, we were fortunate that Yyyyyyyyy University had undertaken an initiative to provide laptop computers to every entering student. My colleague, Nnnnn Nnnn, who had been involved in the collaboration from its earliest days, recognized that this would mean that every year there would be a supply of not quite new laptops in reasonable condition that would be turned over as part of the yearly rollout of new computers. Professor Nnnn suggested that we “turn the arrows around,” by having a small group of seventh- and eighth-grade students, selected by our collaborating teachers at Julia de Burgos, participate in series of Saturday morning classes at Yyyyyyyyy. The classes were to be conducted by undergraduates from my computer ethics class. These Saturday sessions would provide the elementary school students an extended opportunity to experience the atmosphere of a university campus, learn some of the elements of computing – hardware, operating systems, applications software, programming, and techniques of research (and safe behavior) using the resources of the world-wide web. At the end of the program each year, the participating students would receive a laptop, refurbished by the Yyyyyyyyy undergraduates, scrubbed clean of proprietary software under restrictive license to the University, and re-populated with an open-source operating system and open-source application packages. The teachers at Julia de Burgos with whom we were working found this idea appealing. Thus, for the past eight years, our collaboration has largely functioned on this basis. Though there have been many interesting interventions by my undergraduate students in their role as mentors, the curriculum for this phase of our project is relatively straightforward. Thus it is not the purpose of this paper to discuss in detail those aspects of our project. Rather, we are interested in laying out some of our observations about the arc of the project, the effects it has had on activities at the school, on the perceptions of the Yyyyyyyyy mentors, and on the state of public school education as they are reflected in our experiences over eighteen years in this one school (talk about small sample statistics!) Our contention is that there is something important about persevering in this university/elementary school relationship in the face of the hindrances and frustrations that have beset the effort. The title of this article is a close paraphrase of the famous exhortation (“Cast down your bucket where you are”) uttered by Booker T. Washington in his 1895 speech to the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, an address that has become known as Washington’s Atlanta Compromise Speech. In its original formulation, it was subsequently adopted by Robert Moses, the well-known and courageous 1960’s civil rights activist, as the lemma of the Algebra Project, Moses’ initiative “to establish a pedagogy of mathematics that expects, encourages, and supports every student to study algebra at the middle-school level” [Moses, et al 1989] in order to provide every student, but very particularly minority students, access to the high school college preparatory curriculum. At the outset it is important that we say two things – one by way of a modest claim, the other by way of equally modest disclaimer. Our claim is that “Put your bucket down where you are” expresses accurately the spirit in which we and the teachers at Julia de Burgos began our collaboration. And it undergirds the determination with which we have sustained the effort over nearly two decades. In their 1989 Harvard Educational Review paper, Robert Moses and his colleagues connect Washington’s evocative phrase to the community-organizing tradition of Ella Baker, one of the guiding spirits of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960’s, who stressed organizing in the context in which one lives and works. Thus situated, one understands that there is a deep political significance and an implicit intention to work on a large, ambitious scale imbedded in the phrase. Therefore, we need to disclaim explicitly any intent to aggrandize our effort. We have been aware, sometimes painfully, of the limitations of our situation and of the small canvas on which we are given the opportunity to work. Perhaps it is invariably the case, but in our collaboration we have always been acutely conscious of working in an environment dominated by tides of educational fashion and politics that operate on a macro scale and are far beyond our control. As we will illustrate in this article, at times our efforts seem to be fortunately aligned with these tides and the current appears to be carrying us strongly toward a good place. But the tides are susceptible of changing direction swiftly and implacably, resisting and ultimately undoing what we considered our most promising initiatives. In the sections of the narrative that follow, we will relate the circumstances that led to our collaboration; of conditions at the outset of our project as we observed them and as they were described from within the school [Asquith 2013]; the chronically unsettled state of personnel assignments and funding; the author’s experiences as a participant in the massive, but ultimately unsuccessful, Philadelphia Systemic Initiative grant proposal; a brief summary of successive stages of our collaboration; the revealing story of the school library at Julia de Burgos; some evidence of the effects of our work on students, teachers, and families at the school; recent indications of progress that have resulted in improving conditions and educational outcomes at Julia de Burgos; and, importantly, the ways in which participation in the collaboration has affected the perspectives of the Yyyyyyyyy students, largely drawn from the author’s computer ethics classes, who have served as mentors to successive classes of seventh- and eighth-grade students at Julia de Burgos.

References

Asquith, Christina, [2013], The Emergency Teacher: The Inspirational Story of a New Teacher in an Inner City School, Skyhorse Publishing, Perseus Books Group, New York

Xxxxxxxxxx, Xxxxxxx [2008], Getting to the Other Side – Beyond the Digital Divide, Living, Working and Learning Beyond Technology, Proceedings of ETHICOMP 2008, University of Pavia, Mantua Italy, pp. 245-255.

Moses, Robert, Mieko Kamii, Susan McAllister Swap, and Jeffrey Howard, [1989] “The Algebra Project: Organizing in the Spirit of Ella, Harvard Educational Review, vol. 59, no. 4, November 1989, pp. 423-443.

ABSTRACT. This paper will address the challenges of teaching computer ethis to engineers.

ABSTRACT. It has been often said that the Internet is one of the most powerful kinds of cognitive enhancement, due to the fact that it is a technology especially built for bringing together and sharing the distributed intelligence of various individuals or groups of people (Bostrom and Sandberg 2009, 321). Persson and Savulescu (2008) thought that the “connection of minds and information through the Internet seems the most realistic means of substantial cognitive enhancement.” Furthermore, Allen Buchanan considers numeracy, literacy and computers to be cognitive enhancements (Buchanan 2011, 26). Computer networks (including the World Wide Web) are augmenting people’s “ability to coordinate”, weakening the state monopoly of institutional coordination (Buchanan 2011, 46). Also, Nick Bostrom (2014) rephrases the problem of cognitive enhancement through the Internet in his latest book, Superintelligence. The network will not enhance individual persons so that they acquire superintelligence, rather it will make possible a collective superintelligence as a system composed of individuals (2014, 48). Our aim is to show that the focus on the Internet as a technology of cognitive enhancement is wrong, mainly because our cognitive subsystems are put under greater stress in this chaotic medium. We argue instead for a shift of attention to the Internet's potential of becoming one of the most successful types of institutional enhancements with the ability of radically improving global welfare. Following Bostrom’s and Sandberg’s lines we maintain that cognitive enhancement should be differentiated from therapy. It refers to methods of improving the performance of various cognitive subsystems, without correcting a pathology or dysfunction of the subsystem concerned (Bostrom and Sandberg 2009, 312). On the other hand, cognition is understood as the process of organizing information and it includes acquiring (perception), selecting (attention), representing (understanding) and retaining (memory) information, and using it to guide behavior (reasoning and coordination of motor outputs) (Bostrom and Sandberg 2009, 312). One of the first cognitive subsystems challenged by the use of the Internet is the one of selecting information. Information on the Internet is plentiful which creates the phenomenon of information overload which refers to a state of affairs where the person in question is overwhelmed by the information useful to his context, leading to a situation where she cannot discern between reliable and unreliable pieces of data. ‘Too much information’ is caused by several factors like an increasing rate of producing new information, the ease of transmission and duplication of information over the Internet, an increase of channels for transmitting information, contradictions and misinformation in the available data, lack of structure of the pieces of information delivered through the Web and so on (Levy 2008, 510). It has been often stressed that human beings have a limited attentional capacity; and it is exactly this capacity that is threatened or provoked by the excess of information (Kirsch 2000, 25). Thus, instead of being useful, excess information turns into a hindrance, becoming extremely difficult for individuals to select and understand the information needed for a particular context. This might be due to the fact that the digital tools for synthesis and management have not kept up with the rate of expansion of information. As a consequence, much of the time dedicated to reflection and contemplation are lost, by reason of the increase of the work time needed for selecting information from vast amounts of sources (the phenomenon of ‘digital shadow/hidden work’) (Levy 2008, 511). Unlike its earlier version, the contemporary Web looks quite different: websites and other digital tools are designed to bring about compulsive behaviors (Schulson 2015). Design and engineering became more important than the informational content; these two ‘poietic’ activities are driven by marketing principles and prior knowledge of human habits (extracted through Big Data analysis). The contemporary Web is corporatized and ghettoized in different digital ecosystems (like Google, Facebook, Amazon or eBay) which elicit by design various practices based on triggers, emotions and automatic cognitive scripts (producing unreflected and sometimes irrational, compulsive states of mind). Each website or social digital ecosystem is designed to captivate attention and to cultivate habits in users (Schulson 2015) in order to produce a (repetitive) cycle of captivity. Users are hooked up by ‘captology’ methods. ‘Captology’ is the design, research, and analysis of interactive computing products (computers, mobile phones, websites, wireless technologies, mobile applications, video games, etc.) created for the purpose of changing people’s attitudes or behaviors. Captology could lead to addiction and compulsive behavior. In order to avoid the Internet’s ‘siren songs’ one needs prior knowledge of the network, discipline and a ‘sense of equilibrium’. Attention is oriented by emergency and novelty, thus the user has to cope with the rapid change and flow of content (at least on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or Tumblr). It is impossible to ‘freeze’ this flow and, in the same time, to still have a sense of connectivity. Maybe the biggest issue is that of representing the acquired information in order to extract it from its original support and to modify it for our own purposes. Understanding is in-formed by design and the representational cognitive content cannot be extracted and openly re-arranged. Although the Internet is oftentimes presented as the main driver for change and evolution of human beings, its capacity for radically transforming human cognition is well overrated. Over the past two decades, a substantial body of work has showed that although the Internet is the most efficient information distribution medium, it has nonetheless instilled in users a shallow mode of information processing (Sparrow et al. 2011) because it encourages rapid and non-linear attention shifts, reduced contemplation and decreased information retention (Loh and Kanai 2015). Too much use of the Internet can lead to addictive and compulsive behaviors as well as shorter attention spans. The Internet, as we experience it today, can neither expand nor ameliorate our cognitive subsystems. We argue, instead, that our focus should shift to the Internet’s potential of being one of the most successful institutional enhancements (Buchanan 2011) with an important potential of creating “wealthier societies and higher standards of living”. Following Ivan Illich’s lines (Illich 1973), we maintain that in order to actualize the powers of the Internet as an institutional enhancement and to fully harness its benefits, key actors in Internet design and governance should shape it as a ‘tool of conviviality’.

References

Bawden, David, and Lyn Robinson. 2009. “The dark side of information: overload, anxiety and other paradoxes and pathologies.” Journal of Information Science, 35 (2): 180-191.

Bostrom, Nick, and Anders Sandberg. 2009. “Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics, Regulatory Challenges.” Science and Engineering Ethics, 15 (3): 311-341.

Bostrom, Nick. 2014. Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford University Press.

Buchanan, Allen E. 2011. Beyond humanity? The ethics of biomedical enhancement. Oxford University Press.

Coeckelbergh, Mark. 2011. “Human development or human enhancement? A methodological reflection on capabilities and the evaluation of information technologies.” Ethics and Information Technology, 13 (2): 81-92.

Earp B. D., Sandberg A., Kahane G., Savulescu J. 2014. “When is diminishment a form of enhancement? Rethinking the enhancement debate in biomedical ethics.” Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. 8 (12): 1-8.

Himma, Kenneth Einar. 2007. “The concept of information overload: A preliminary step in understanding the nature of a harmful information-related condition.” Ethics and Information Technology, 9 (4): 259-272.

Illich, Ivan. 1973. Tools for Conviviality. Harper & Row.

Levy, David M. 2008. “Information Overload.” In The Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics, edited by Kenneth E. Himma and Herman T. Tavani, 497–515. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Loh, Kep Kee, and Ryota Kanai. 2015. “How has the Internet reshaped human cognition?” The Neuroscientist, 1-15.

Persson, Ingmar, and Julian Savulescu. 2008. “The perils of cognitive enhancement and the urgent imperative to enhance the moral character of humanity.” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25 (3): 162-177.

Schulson, Michael. 2015. “User behaviour. Websites and apps are designed for compulsion, even addiction. Should the net be regulated like drugs or casinos?” Aeon, url: https://aeon.co/essays/if-the-internet-is-addictive-why-don-t-we-regulate-it (accessed on 28 November 2015).

Sparrow, Betsy, Jenny Liu, and Daniel M. Wegner. 2011. “Google effects on memory: cognitive consequences of having information at our fingertips.” Science, 333 (6043): 776-778.

ABSTRACT. Over the past two decades, a wide variety of researchers have documented the dramatic decline in traditional political participation activities among young people and a corresponding increase in a more expressive form of citizenship focused around social media. This paper will briefly outline the sociological and political debate about the changing nature of citizenship and then reflect on this debate in light of our own multi-year qualitative citizenship research project. Our findings indicate that many of the transformative claims made about young people’s Digital Citizenship orientations are overstated.

ABSTRACT. This article analyses the possibilities of using Habermasian rational discourse for designing information systems. We start by conceptualizing, how Habermasian rational discourse and participatory action research could be used for designing information systems. Then we question our initial concept based on our experiences and reflections from ongoing research project which aims to design new governmental information systems for parents of disabled children.

ABSTRACT. With advances in internet and social media connectivity we have witnessed significant transformations in entire industries such as publishing, telecommunication, entertainment, and advertising/marketing. We also are beginning to see interesting developments in philanthropy and social movement/social change. In this paper, we offer a case study of Callisto, an online site for sexual assault reporting, to highlight innovations in the latter domain. We compare Callisto first to ordinary reporting systems, second to value design projects in computer/information system engineering, and third to large scale social movements and social media enterprises. We differentiate Callisto from other systems based on value agency (a measure of a system’s societal reach, resource commitment, and value design engineering) and we highlight its dual mission of empowering survivors and promoting social justice.

1. BACKGROUND

One in five women and one in sixteen men in the United States are sexually assaulted during their time in college and less than 5% of victims on college campuses report their assaults to law enforcement (Krebs et. al., 2007). Universities are being increasingly held accountable for their responses by victims and the U.S. Office for Civil Rights. Callisto is both a product and promoter of the increased effort to address campus sexual violence. It is a third party reporting service created by Sexual Health Innovations to support students who have experienced sexual violence. Using the program, students create an encrypted, time stamped record of their assault which is then further passcode protected. They are then prompted to create a record of the assault which allows them to save details of the assault for later reporting if desired. Students can then use the program to directly report to the school or they have the option of “matching” in which their report is only submitted to the university if another student names the same perpetrator.

There are various barriers to reporting including not wanting others to find out about the assault, lack of proof, fear of retaliation, fear of being treated badly by the police or a belief that the police would view the incident as not serious (Fisher, Cullen & Turner, 2000). When survivors do report in person or by phone often this is done months or years after an attack and without the benefit of a record established closer to the occurrence. Callisto simplifies record making by means of the accessible online format and, as compared to other online reporting systems, is unique by using information escrows in which information is stored and only passed along if certain conditions are met (i.e. a second person reports an assault and identifies the same assailant). This information escrow model has the potential then of mitigating the “first-mover disadvantage,” that is, the daunting prospect of facing alone the ordeal of making a public accusation.

2. VALUE DESIGN

Ordinarily, computer and information systems are understood and assessed in terms of utility-- technical and economic. Value enters as these systems are developed and deployed, but the “value added” in this perspective has to do with performance and investment gains. Callisto, however, is nonprofit and its added values are self-empowerment and social justice. Computer scientists & ethicists are key innovators in value design, for example with Participatory Design, Persuasive Design, Value Sensitive Design and Value in Design (Bødker, Kensing, & Simonsen, 2004; Fogg, 2003; Batya, Kahn & Borning, 2008; Nissenbaum & Gaboury, 2016). Callisto demonstrated Participatory Design from the start by inclusion of sexual assault survivors in the creation of the reporting system. It conducts focus groups and surveys on the campuses it serves to likewise get feedback from those using the program. Persuasive Design is apparent in the low stakes entry point in which a person may establish a private, encrypted, and anonymous record of an incident of unwanted sexual contact or assault. Survivors are also encouraged to think in terms of how they might contribute to prevention. On Callisto’s main web page, the low rate of reporting in the U.S. is described as being problematic in that few assailants are being identified and that repeat offenders commit 90% of sexual assaults. “We could prevent 59% of assaults from ever occurring - just by halting repeat offenders earlier on.” (www.projectcallisto.org) The matching system is a specifically designed opt-in choice described as an important aid in identifying repeat offenders. Matching also entails a further commitment toward reporting. In the spirit of Persuasive Design, Callisto strives for a balance between fulfilling its mission of increasing reporting/prevention and respecting participants’ autonomy and privacy.

Callisto demonstrates Value Sensitive Design and Value in Design in various ways, for instance in its commitment to survivor empowerment as demonstrated in its survivor centered practice. Empowerment entails autonomy and self-determination, and in the context of sexual assault victimization, this means regaining one’s personal and social vitality. This is facilitated in a few ways. Callisto provides a supportive environment for survivors to act and it encourages survivors to be proactive by framing this as a service to others.

Given the emphasis on values associated with personal well-being it might seem surprising that Callisto’s motto is “Technological Solutions for Transformative Social Change.” This suggests another dimension of Callisto’s value commitment, one that follows from the mission of its parent organization, Sexual Health Innovations, which asserts a social right of access to sexual health and wellbeing education, services, and support. From a social epidemiological perspective lack of access to effective reporting systems is framed as a matter of social stratification and social discrimination. Callisto appeals to the social values of equity and justice.

3. VALUE AGENCY

As an agent, Callisto aims to empower survivors and reduce the sexual assault epidemic. How does its “value agency” compare to other systems? By value agency we mean the breadth and commitment to the socio-technical promotion of values. Of the possible dimensions, we take into account: 1) societal reach, 2) value commitment, and 3) value design. By “societal reach” we have in mind the enterprise scale and whether its operation influences a small or large population. “Value commitment” refers to the extent an enterprise commits its resources (capital, labor, reputation, etc.) directly for the promotion of human values. With “value design” we simply note the extent to which enterprises engage in this approach as described above.

Ordinarily, but not exclusively, value design projects are modest in scope and are designed for a specific context such as a workplace. Callisto as an organization has a greater reach than most projects as it integrates or coordinates with institutions of higher education, counseling support services, Title IX and other federal government initiatives in the United States. Callisto is a sociotechnical ensemble that includes tandem technological and social institutional activism. Social movements of the 21st Century such as Occupy, Black Lives Matter, and the movements behind the Arab Spring and “colored” revolutions have proven adept at using digital devices, social media, and social networks to gain recruits, share information, organize protests, and gain media attention (Tufekci, 2014). With regard to notoriety and influence on the public, their reach is more extensive than Callisto. Movements rate high on value commitment but tend to be low or moderate on value design as organizers most often use computer and information systems that are already in place and readily available to the public rather than develop their own. Social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter also are far reaching due to their access to a huge user base, however, as fundamentally advertising and marketing for-profit corporations they are low on value commitment and value design.

4. CALLISTO’S POSITIONING

What would it take for Callisto to attain the societal reach of movements and social media? First of all, Callisto has an advantage over many value design systems in that it is a mission-driven organization rather than a circumscribed project within larger enterprises. Callisto plans on expanding as it seeks more partnerships within higher education and considers eventually making inroads in the workplace and military. The reporting system was designed to be scalable, but Callisto’s growth also will be dependent on forming alliances with counselors, courts, school administrators, etc. However, in comparison to Facebook or Twitter it is limited by revenue, receiving most of its funding from corporate and individual donors. If Callisto attempted to generate a revenue stream, for example, through promotional advertising on its web site, it would risk drifting lower on value commitment. Also, it will be difficult to adopt movement growth strategies that attract attention through daring ideologies and subversive acts. Despite being innovative, Callisto is committed to working within existing systems. In conclusion, it appears that Callisto is well-positioned as a mid-level, value-driven enterprise and may serve as a model for other innovative social-technical reform initiatives.

REFERENCES

Batya, F., Kahn Jr., P., & Borning, A. (2008). Value Sensitive Design and Information Systems. In K.E. Himma & H.T. Tavani (Eds.) The Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Bødker, K., Kensing, F., & Simonsen, J. (2004). Participatory IT design: Designing for business and workplace realities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Fisher, B.S., Cullen, F.T., & Turner, M.G. (2000). The Sexual Victimization of College Women. National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Fogg, B.J. (2003). Persuasive Technology- Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do. San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. Krebs, C. P., Lindquist, C. H., Warner, T. D., Fisher, B. S., & Martin, S.L. (2007). The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study: Final Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Nissenbaum, H. & Gaboury J. (2016, June 12). Values in Design. Retrieved from http://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/vid/. Tufekci, Z. (2014). "Social Movements and Governments in the Digital Age: Evaluating a Complex Landscape." Journal of International Affairs 1, 1-18.

ABSTRACT. The process of acquisition and its impact on ethical concerns Extended abstract Key words: Responsible Research and Innovation, Brain Computer Interfaces, Human Brain Project, Consumer goods, Ethical concerns

Ethical concerns can change when an artefact changes from being the object of research to becoming available on the market as a consumer device. Our paper explores what a consumer device is, and how the process of acquisition is important for the ethical concerns. It argues that some of the reasons for this change in the ethical concerns are related to the change of responsibility that occurs when a product becomes easily available, along with the change in the number of users affected by a product being available for consumers. This paper then argues that this is important for research projects to consider. What happens to the ethical issues when technology is moved from research settings, to medical settings, or even further towards a consumer setting? This paper will explore that question, by looking at the definitions of consumer goods, followed by an argument for that the change of acquisition impacts the ethical concerns for said goods. This argument will build upon the paper “When BCI moves from research setting to a commercial setting”, which argued that the change of intent for brain computer interface (BCI) developers in research to the intent for BCI developers in commercial settings had an impact on the ethical concerns (Wolpaw et al. 2002; Horizon n.d.; Hansen 2015). We argue that in addition to the argument of intent having an impact on the ethical concerns, the way of acquisition is of importance for the ethical concerns. This argument will be based upon the definition of a consumer product, which will be defined in the next section of this abstract. This is followed by a description of how this will influence the ethical concerns, and what it means for projects such as the human brain project (HBP). (HBP n.d.)

What is a consumer product? The definition of consumer goods in the Oxford Dictionary shows importance of the process of acquisition and intent. The definition specify consumer goods as “goods put to use by consumers, not used in producing other goods” and the definition of a consumer as ”a person who consumes” and “a purchaser of goods or services” (Pearsall & Trumble 1995, p.309). In these definitions, we can see that the process of purchasing the product is important, and the intent for personal use is the other important aspect of what makes consumer goods. It is also important to note that the actual usage of the product is used in specifying consumer products or goods as well. We argue that this is related to the definition of private property and the responsibility change based on the acquisition process. (Waldron 1990; Waldron 2012) While developers are able to influence the usage of their product by their design, they have no direct control of the usage of their product. They can however influence their intended usage of their product, and the process of acquisition, and therefore also whether their product is a consumer product or not. This paper therefore argues that developers/researchers have a responsibility for thinking about the way of acquisition as part of their ethical evaluation. In addition, we will explore the difference in acquisition of research, medical and consumer BCI to compare how the difference in acquisition impacts the ethical concerns. We now discuss why acquisition is important, and how it might impacts the ethical concerns.

Why acquisition is important? The process of acquisition can change ethical concerns relating to a product. In addition to the general definition of consumer goods there currently seems to be a lack of classification for what is considered a consumer product for BCI. This raises an issue in terms of public perception of what qualifies as BCI. While it might seem less important how exactly something qualifies as a consumer product in commercial settings, this can raise significant concerns, if there is no clear distinction between devices used in research and consumer settings. It could be the case that public perception of BCI could be negatively impacted if consumers expect consumer devices to be the same as those used in research, and have different experiences when trying to replicate research scenarios. The question remains, however, how acquisition changes to ethical concerns. One thing that changes is the distribution of responsibility. If a product is acquired as a consumer device, the only requirement to acquire the product is being able to pay the price. Responsibility for the usage is in many ways given to the consumer. The developer to some extent loses responsibility for any misuse or misinterpretations made by the user (to the extent that they have instructed users on correct usage, and warned about potential dangers of misuse and misinterpretation). In research or medical settings, if a BCI is given to a consumer, some responsibility is placed upon either the researcher or the medical staff for ensuring that the product is not misused or the results misinterpreted. The way ethical concerns are dealt with in the different settings is also interesting. In the medical and in the research setting there are strict regulations and guidelines for how to make and use these products. For consumer products there are some regulations and guidelines, but while they often relate to health and safety, there is not an ethical guideline applied to these industries. This is what projects such as responsible research and innovation (RRI) are trying to look at, but this paper will recommend that research projects, in their ethical evaluation, consider what ethical concerns may change as devices used in research migrate into a consumer setting. While it can be hard (if not impossible) to predict how these products might turn out, it is nevertheless important that a plan is made for what should happen when the product or knowledge reach a state where commercial settings are possible. The final reason why the acquisition process is important for the ethical concerns is possibly the most obvious one, which is that with less restricted access to something, the potential of more people being affected by the product increases. This could mean that the societal impact increases, but also that social changes are made as exposure to the product is unregulated. In the following section, this abstract will explore what this means for the HBP and other projects.

What does this mean for HBP and other projects? One could argue that simply the intent of selling a product, rather than producing new knowledge, would be enough to classify something as a commercial setting. However, this paper argues that this is not enough. This will impact upon how research projects that may lead to the development of products that end up on the consumer market need to think about this distinction. One example of such a project is the Human Brain Project. (HBP n.d.) This is a large and long-term project bringing together neuroscience and ICT to develop tools and infrastructure for brain and computing-related research. The project intends to be sensitive to ethical concerns. This has been done through their project description and their ethics program: “The HBP aims to put in place a cutting-edge, ICT-based scientific Research Infrastructure for brain research, cognitive neuroscience and brain-inspired computing. The Project promotes collaboration across the globe, and is committed to driving forward European industry.“ (Human Brain Project n.d.) Therefore, the project has a clear commercial intent, but the commercial setting is also closely connected to a research setting. This could result in the ethical concerns in the two settings being more closely connected than if the intended commercialisation had been for end user consumers rather than other industries working with researchers and medical industries. While one could argue that researchers and people working in the medical industry are consumers of goods, this usage of goods should be classified as producing the service of healthcare or knowledge as a product. For these goods to be considered consumer goods, the acquisition must be possible in a broader sense. If a product is not directly possible to acquire without being associated with a research project, or the medical industry, then it should not be classified as a consumer device. Therefore projects such as the HBP need to consider what should happen when these technologies or the knowledge produced by the HBP move to a commercial setting for the average consumer. While they might not be able to predict what the ethical concerns exactly would be, they need to make sure that when the time comes, a plan is made for how to handle them.

References

Hansen, C.B.J., 2015. When brain computer interfaces move from research to commercial use. , 45(3), pp.356–360. HBP, Human Brain Project. Available at: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en_GB/home [Accessed September 12, 2016]. Horizon, B., BNCI Horizon 2020 - basics. Available at: http://bnci-horizon-2020.eu/index.php/about/basics [Accessed October 22, 2015]. Human Brain Project, Overview - Human Brain Project. Available at: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en_GB/2016-overview;jsessionid=2zkcn3wxj8gyimwig5mz9lk9 [Accessed September 5, 2016]. Pearsall, J. & Trumble, B. eds., 1995. consumer goods. In The Oxford English Reference Dictionary. Oxford University Press, p. 309. Waldron, J., 2012. Property and Ownership Spring 201. E. N. Zalta, ed., Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/property/ [Accessed September 9, 2016]. Waldron, J., 1990. What is private property? In The right to private property. New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, pp. 26–61. Wolpaw, J.R. et al., 2002. Brain-computer interfaces for communication and control. Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology, 113, pp.767–91. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12048038.

ABSTRACT. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) can be seen as a new general model of responsibility beyond liability, compensation and precaution, aiming at steering the innovation process in a participative manner by constructing responsibility as a shared process between innovators and societal stakeholders. RRI therefore widens the spectrum of responsibility by enlarging at the same time both its scopes (as responsibility is seen as as a steering process rather than a remedy) and its subjects (as responsibility is constructed as a collaborative process between innovators and societal stakeholders). If those features of RRI are taken seriously, this requires a major societal and political switch, since the practical implementation of the RRI idea is highly problematic as there are some conditions to meet in order the premises and promises of RRI to be realised. RRI model promotes a participative approach to responsibility, namely between innovators and stakeholders, in the context of a non-adversarial logic rather than that of adversarial justice based on dispute settlement (may it be at the judicial level or not). In this sense, RRI goals seem to be better achieved via governance strategies focusing on actors’ responsibilisation, making appeal to actors’ capacity of reciprocal commitment towards some common goals not mandated by the law. Nevertheless, participation, which is one of the distinguishing characteristics of RRI approach, does not seem to be a sufficient guarantee for societal values and it has to be complemented with a wider reference to human rights as being part of the European culture and not only as binding legal norms. We will argue that RRI cannot rest solely on the good will of innovators engaging in voluntary self-regulation, but instead requires to be linked to fundamental rights which can structure the relation between innovators and stakeholders and mediate between the respective interests.

ABSTRACT. This work focuses on what we call transformative technologies. These are technologies that have the potential to transform existing modes of production and to change the relation of the company with users, suppliers or other stakeholders. Such transformative technologies can make important if not indispensable contributions to a sustainable society and to the economic competitiveness of Europe. Think of the potential contribution of synthetic biology to the bio-economy, and the way in which the Internet of Things can transform everything from the personalization of health care and energy use to the collection of data for evidenced-based investment in transportation, energy distribution and manufacturing processes. Our focus will be then on industries that develop - what we call - transformative technologies, and the way the new approach can help to deal with the partly unknown benefits and risks and public and ethical values and concerns that surround these technologies.

This paper in principle works on strategies and tools to deal with the social and ethical challenges posed on basis of the existing literature. For this task, use will be made of the outcomes of the EU-level and national-level projects such as NWO-VICI project ‘New Technologies as social experiments’.

The technologies we focus on represent some of the major transformative technologies that are developed in the EU, including nanotechnology, synthetic biology, the Internet of Things and self-driving or automated cars. It is generally recognized that these technologies pose major ethical and social challenges so that applying a ethical approach is particularly relevant. These technologies are also of major economic importance for the EU.

In this work we distinguish between two basic types of transformative technologies: • Emerging technologies, like nanotechnology, synthetic biology and Internet of Things. • The transformation of existing technologies like, for example, materials.

These technologies pose somewhat different challenges in industry. In the case of emerging technologies, there is typically little experience and the public, and other stakeholders have only unarticulated expectations and images. One of the main social and ethical challenges is to deal with the uncertainties and unkowns that are typical for emerging technologies. As a consequence of unkowns, risks may unexpectedly arise, public concerns may suddenly pop up, and the dynamics of public debates and controversies may not be predictable beforehand. This puts companies that develop these technologies in a difficult position. Developing these new technologies may not only be commercially attractive but also socially desirable. At the same time, risks and public controversy may pop up unexpectedly and may be hard to manage. In the worst case, such situations result in waiting games in which companies wait for each other in taking the first step in bringing a product on the market and testing out public reactions (Robinson et al. 2012). Few tools that have been developed over the past few years are helpful in dealing with this challenge. Yet, in many cases they still focus primarily on the anticipation of risks and public concerns although anticipation is necessary, also for emerging technologies, it needs to be supplemented by adaptive approaches that are able to address risks and public concerns as they emerge (e.g. Van de Poel 2009; Haasnoot et al. 2013).

To identify the social and ethical challenges posed by transformative technologies, we apply a case study approach by having eight pilots. The pilots focus on the R&D and innovation phase of the development and life cycle of products. These pilots take place at private companies and public-private partnerships. Each pilot will specifically focus on one or more specific products or transformative technologies developed by the company or PPP. The pilot aims at evaluating the applicability of a number of RRI and gender approaches and tools to the company and to the development process of the product or technology that is central stage in the pilot. For each pilot company, an inventory will be made of needs, whishes, drivers and barriers within the company for developing, adopting and implementing RRI strategy and tools.

Nanotechnology, synthetic biology, the Internet of Things, self-driving or automated cars, and steel are all major industries in Europe (and world-wide). Implementing a social and ethical approach for these technologies may therefore have a major impact. These technologies also represent a major challenge for Europe not only in terms of technological development and economic competiveness but also in terms of social embedding and acceptance. Our focus on transformative technologies - that have potential for large benefits, both societal and economical, and at the same time may bring high risks- is thus a conscious choice. These industries are very relevant cases for our focus. Also, it could be argued that in this area the need for actual solutions of how to deal with uncertainties, possible risks or ethical concerns (hence products that better meet the needs and concerns of society) is particularly necessary.

To this end, the main aim of this paper is to see how - and proof that – ethical principles and guidelines can be established and applied in industry.

ABSTRACT. As information and communication technology applications evolve, the way society describes, understands and produces space changes as well. This, in turn, has profound consequences on other social, political and economic aspects. This paper sketches a taxonomy of ICT-mediated social production of space as an attempt to base subsequent social, political and economic analysis.

ABSTRACT. The trends in social computing and AI demonstrate development trends which will be influential for social machines: proactive software processes will play a leading role in future social machines. The degrees of freedom built into computational artefacts may materialize in individual acts, mandated actions or collaborative interaction. The socio-technical fabric of our world will be augmented by these collaborative systems.

ABSTRACT. Technology, in all shapes, sizes, forms and fields, has radically changed people’s lives. In the words of Vint Cerf, one of the ‘fathers of the internet,’ “We never, ever in the history of mankind have had access to so much information so quickly and so easily.” The law scrambles to keep up with the times, but the reality is that the legal process is no match for technology’s lightning-fast progress. While the law addresses what is theoretically in the best interest of members of a society, at a more base level, individual moral-decision-making is governed by the individual in relation to her/his perceived needs. Everett Rogers, in The Diffusion of Innovations, discusses primary and secondary, intended and unintended, positive and negative consequences. While consequences should be considered before using technology, the reality is that news websites retract, kids sext, adults sext, people hack, and people take action for the fame. Even if the primary consequences are considered, it is the secondary consequences that can ruin lives.

One significant source of information/news is a website called Reddit.com Ranked 29th as a top 100 website in America, Reddit taps into a global audience. 192 countries view 56 billion pages per year, and 731 million unique annual visitors to the site make Reddit a powerful social platform. But it is a platform without many boundaries. For some situations, the lack of constraints has led to positive outcomes, but there have also been decisions made on Reddit without enough information, and once shared, the words cannot be retracted. Reddit professes to be the Front Page of the Internet, but the content relies solely on an initial poster, and the sharing of information via readers who may not always make the wisest of decisions.

The Boston Marathon Bombing In April, 2013 landed on the front page of Reddit, and the virtual manhunt began. One Redditor made a decision to post the picture snagged from a Facebook page of Sunil Tripathi, a student who had gone missing since late February, 2013. The Redditor pasted it next to the photo of the youngest bombing suspect. Immediately Sunil’s family became victims to hatred and harassment from all who had heard or ‘saw’ that Sunil was one of the bombers. That one decision to use technology in that fashion, had a profoundly negative impact on Sunil’s family and friends and indeed Sunil himself, who was later discovered to have already been dead. Deciding to merge those pictures served no benefit other than to garner attention. It brought instant gratification.

Facebook is the biggest social media network on the World Wide Web with number of users but also with brand recognition. People use it for business needs, staying in touch with family, forming a social system/support group, advertising events, or for staying in touch with peers. It’s also a source of stalking and shaming, hacking and hurting. People make the conscious decision to enter someone else’s protected Facebook page and gather information or post information to that page with the intention of trolling or causing harm to another. 30% of youth are bullies or targets of bullies that now extends to social media and other online venues. Aside from the individual-to-individual harm, employers are now tapping in to social media. Job candidates have divulged that employers have requested to view the candidates’ pages, else had someone view the person’s page and found party scenes, drinking under age, smoking pot or other things which would make the individual a ‘poor fit’ with the organization.

MySpace is a platform similar to Facebook. While nowhere near as famous it was nonetheless popular in the early 2000’s. Megan Meier was a 13-year-old girl who hanged herself in a bedroom closet in October 2006. She had self-esteem issues. She met a boy online. They communicated but never met. The conversations went from initially positive, friendly and supportive, to more cruel messages telling Megan, “The world would be a better place without you.” Megan’s classmates became involved and sent horrible messages to Megan. One day, she left her computer, went to her room, and within 20 minutes, hung herself. The ‘boy’ turned out to be another parent.

Twitter is the go-to for media people. Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren had a very public, visible and unbecoming Twitter war. It is hard to imagine how much damage can be inflicted in 140 characters, but Tweeters range from the neighbor next door to Taylor Swift, Michelle Obama to Justin Trudeau. And each one of these people consider the consequence (sharing information) but neglect the secondary consequences of being misunderstood, being wrong, or having the tone misinterpreted. With positions of authority, recognition or fame, there is a heavier moral hat to wear, because your audience is incredibly large and your fame (rightly or wrongly) carries weight.

YouTube is the largest and most popular social media website that is video-based. After Google, it is the most popular search engine on the World Wide Web. Everyone can be a star. The range of topics indicates everyone indeed wants to be a star. Aside from self-made videos, people copy scenes from movies, music clips, sports events and edit them, making their own video. There are laws that permit the creation of content owned by , but not using the content of others without permission. Many people do not seem to grasp the concept of Fair Use, and it may lend to poor decision-making. With 1 billion website visitors per month, individuals may believe they can do anything, or believe they will not get caught.

The thought processes in many cases seem to dwell on the ‘getting caught’ angle and not the consequence of harm to others. The immediacy of pleasure seems to override the outcome of causing pain either to an individual or group of individuals. The bigger question remains, “Do they care?” Remorse seems to happen only when harm befalls others. The desire to get their “fix” seems to overpower moral decision-making.

It can be argued that these things happen in the real world. People say mean things. People do mean things. People spread lies. People bully. The difference between the real world and the World Wide Web is like the real world being a grain of sand in your palm, and the World Wide Web being a very large beach of millions of sand grains. If you are one grain of sand on a vast beach among millions of other grains of sand, your moral decision-making process might very well be, “What are the chances….”