IIT Ethics Bowl competing in Upper Midwest Ethics Bowl, December 1st.

Come support the IIT Ethics Bowl team as they compete in the Upper Midwest Regional Ethics Bowl Competition on December 1st at Loyola's Watertower campus from 9:30 to 5. The team, who has been debating a series of ethics case studies since the beginning of the semester will be competing against 18 other teams from the Midwest.

Check out CSEP's Ethics Bowl website for more information.

CSEP Senior Fellow Michael Davis quoted in Forbes

CSEP Senior Fellow Dr. Michael Davis was mentioned in a recent article in Forbes Magazine called, "Memo to New SEC Chief: Ask the FAA How to Stop the Next Flash Crash." The article cites Davis's recent article in Science and Engineering Ethics discussing ethics and high frequency trading.

Privacy and the Professional Librarian in an Age of Social Media

One of my colleagues at Galvin just sent a me really interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, "As Libraries Go Digital, Sharing of Data Is at Odds With Tradition of Privacy."  The article discusses the the growth of social media use in libraries and how this culture of sharing personal information comes into conflict with librarians' tradition of protecting patrons' privacy. 
 
This tradition, which grew out of incidents in the 70's and 80's where the FBI tried to figure out what scholars were studying by getting library clerks to reveal the reading habits of their patron,  led to the passage of laws in may states to protect this data. Librarians' commitment to protect the confidentiality of patron information has been in the American Library Association's Code of Ethics since 1939, and this commitment has only become more strongly voiced over time, with the 2008 code stating, " We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or recevied and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted," in article 3 of the code. 

However, as anyone who has walked in to Galvin or another library knows, the use of social media is spreading, from the use of Twitter to connect with students and to share new book purchases, to allowing users to add their own tags to materials in the online catalog. If librarians did end up using patron information in the same way that Amazon or Google did, librarians could develop exciting new search  features that go far beyond showing what books and articles other scholars researching your topic have consulted, and who knows what else. 

Many libraries, as the article points out, have contractual agreements with Amazon that allow library users with a Kindle to check out books for free, and Amazon keeps track of what these patrons check out. So how far can we go in sharing user information when we have the aim of improving the library user experience? Is  librarians' dedication to  article 3 of ALA's Code of Ethics outdated, or is this a standard we should continue to uphold?

The Presidential Campaign and Online Information about You

Companies use your online searching history to personalize the adds that show up in Google and the New York  Times, and now, the Romney and Obama campaigns are doing the same, reports Charles Duhigg of the New York Times on October 13th. According to the article, the campaigns are mining data on individuals, and then are using this data to try and get voters to the polls. In the weeks before the election, millions of voters will get calls from volunteers who will be guided by scripts with detailed information about your life. They will ask questions about how you are planning on spending election day, how you plan on getting to the nearest polling station near you, etc. Later that week, you might find that someone has divulged information about how frequently you or your neighbors have voted in the past. The  thought is (and research backs this up), if you are asked questions about voting, or know that your neighbor or friend is going to go and vote, you might be motivated to also get to the polls on election day.

In the article, both campaigns emphasized their dedication to voter's privacy, but consultants to both campaigns said they had bought demographic data from companies that study details like voter's shopping histories, dating preferences ,and financial problems, put cookies on voters' computers to see what kind of websites they visit, and examine exchanges on social networks to see what issues they care about.

This kind of data mining is not new, just new to presidential campaigns. But it does raise some more interesting ethical questions about if this kind of data should be harvested and used for these kinds of purposes. Is this use better that using it for marketing purposes? Worse? The same? Let us know what you think.

An Ethics Case for Sports Professionals...

We have been following the story for a few days now and thought it might be an interesting case for the blog.

According to a story on NPR on October 5, American speedskater Simon Cho has admitted to yielding to pressure from his coach, Jae Shu Chun, and tampering with another skater's blades at the World Short  Track Team Championships in Poland earlier this year.  Cho won a bronze medal in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and is now the world champion in the 500 meter short track event.

Cho claims that Jae Su Chun, the head coach of the U.S. Speedskating short track team, approached him at the March 2011 championship event in Poland and asked him to tamper with a Canadian rival's skates. Cho alleges that he refused to a number of times before he finally relented.

The article goes on to describe charges of physical, psychological, and verbal abuse that have been lodged against Coach Chun by current and former speedskaters from the U.S. team, and the power that a coach has over their athletes.

If  these allegations are proven to be correct, what kind of punishment do you think would be fair for Coach Jae Shu Chun? And perhaps more interesting, what, if any kind of punishment should Simon Cho face, remembering that he came forward on his own and admitted his wrongdoing, and taking into account the pressure he faced from his coach?

New Study Shows that Many Science Faculty Have Subtle Gender Biases and Favor Male Students

The New York Times on Monday reported on a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that science faculty exhibit a bias against female students that could contribute to the gender disparity in this field. The researchers interviewed 127 science faculty and asked them to rate a student with either a male or female name for a laboratory management position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more qualified for the position then the identical female applicant, and selected a higher starting salary, $26,508 for the female student, and $30,328 for the male student.. Both female and male faculty were found to exhibit bias against the female students, and the bias had no relation to the faculty's age, sex, teaching field or tenure status. 

IIT Ethics Bowl Team

IIT's Ethics Bowl team is meeting  Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:50-1:40 in Siegal Hall to discuss the cases for the APPE Regional Ethics Bowl on December 2, 2012 at Loyola University. If you are interested in joining our discussions, feel free to stop by!