| Description |
An introduction to ethical issues associated with the Information Age. A description of what the Information Age is, how it came to be, and what makes it different from the previous age. Students will study new ethical issues arising from, or given increased prominence by, the Information Age, advances in information collection, storage, retrieval, processing, and dispersion.
Ethical issues to be covered include privacy, surveillance, accuracy, free speech, intellectual property, Internet crime, identity theft, spam, information access, information dispersion, and some consequences of data mining and emerging technologies.
A significant portion of the assignments in the course require both formal and informal writing. It is critical that learners can express themselves in writing, expressing their views on ethical issues that continue to develop as new technologies emerge.
Written work will be emphasized as shown:
• Weekly written discussions
• Weekly “polls” (3 per week – an article related to current technological developments will be posted, and a reflection about the ethical considerations will be required.)
• Persuasive Paper (Each week, one of the required sections of the paper will be handed in as a draft. Feedback will be provided on each draft. The revised (complete) paper is due the last week of the course.
MNTC Goal 9 |