Be a Moderator in the 2013 Regional Ethics Bowl Competition on November 23rd!

The Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions would like to invite you to be a moderator in the Upper Midwest Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl on Saturday, November 23rd  at IIT’s main campus. Come and be a part of this exciting competition!

 

The Ethics Bowl combines the fun of a competitive tournament with a valuable educational experience for undergraduate students. In the ethics bowl, a moderator poses questions to teams of three to five students. Questions may concern ethical problems on wide ranging topics, such as the classroom (e.g. cheating or plagiarism), personal relationships (e.g. dating or friendship), professional ethics (e.g. engineering, law, medicine), or social and political ethics (e.g. free speech, gun control, etc.) Each team receives a set of ethical issues in advance of the competition, and questions posed to teams at the competition are taken from that set. A panel of judges evaluates answers; rating criteria are intelligibility, focus on ethically relevant considerations, avoidance of ethical irrelevance, and deliberative thoughtfulness.

 

IIT will be sponsoring two teams this year who will be competing against 18 different teams from universities around the Midwest.

The competition will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. We will have a judges' & moderators' training breakfast at 8:30, and then there will be four different rounds of ethics bowl, two before lunch, and two after lunch. Both lunch and breakfast will be provided, as well as parking passes on campus. A moderator's role is to help keep the rounds running  on time, read out the questions, and collect the scores of the judges at the end of the match. It a great way to be part of the competition without the stress of having to judge or compete!

 

If you have questions or are interested in being a part of the competition, please email Kelly Laas at laas@iit.edu.

 

We hope you can join us!

Must Read Articles on Science Communication

In their October 4th issue, Science has a pretty incredible collection of articles that I am having a hard time not quoting in every conversation I have with my colleagues and students. The articles cover a number of old and new issues in science communication- everything from the the benefits and challenges of open access publishing to the world of classified academic journals - and hopefully will elicit some much needed conversations about these issues in the scientific disciplines.

The star article of the collection has to be "Who's Afraid of Peer Review" by John Bohannon, which describes the frightening number of open-access academic journals who published his spoof scientific paper without any sort of adequate peer review process. The spoof paper included a number of glaring errors and suspect conclusions that any reputable scientist should have caught. Unfortunately, of the 255 papers he submitted to journals that made it through the full review process, a full 157 of these journals accepted the faulty paper compared to 98 journals who rejected it.

When the article hit the web last week, it garnered its own share of criticism. Many bloggers and other scientists have pointed out that Bohannon should have also submitted his spoof paper to traditional subscription journals as well - it would have been helpful to be able to draw comparisons- and the fact that a subscription-based journal published this article criticizing open access in itself raises some conflict of interest flags. The problem could be not just with open-access journals, but with  lower-level academic journals of all kinds who fail to adequately review papers before they publish. In response to this criticism, the author stated that while he planned to submit papers to both open-access and subscription journals, he soon realized the complexity and time needed for such a huge study, and scaled back his investigation to include only open-access journals.

Whatever your final conclusions about this article, it is impossible to ignore the real problems that plague the world of scientific publishing - open access and more traditional journals alike. So over lunch today, I highly recommend digging in to this issue of Science and some of the related discussion it has prompted in the blogosphere. You won't regret the time spent.

Study Looks at the the Thrill Individuals Get from Cheating...What Does This Mean Ethics Educators (and Educators in General)?

When you engage in unethical behavior, you are supposed to feel somewhat guilty, right? A study recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has shown that individuals involved in six different studies reported a "cheater's high" after they cheated on different problem-solving tasks. This "cheater's high" occurred even in individuals who predicted that they would feel guilty after engaging in unethical behavior, and even when the financial incentive to cheat was removed. The New York Times has an good summary of the article.

The authors of the study predicted that, barring a financial incentive, or relief at not being caught,  people feel good about cheating because of a sense of self-satisfaction or a sense of superiority. This "cheater's high" points to a potential difficulty in changing  this kind of behavior. One way may be to eliminate the anonymity of the cheater, or emphasize how others are hurt by cheating. What are your thoughts on how this study might change your way of addressing issues of plagiarism and cheating in the classroom and beyond?

Fall Break Hours

CSEP Library will be open normal hours on Monday, October 7th. We will be closed October 5-6th.

Ethical Echoes in the Legal Limits of Patent Monopolies, a discussion with Dr. Charles Krikorian

On Tuesday, October 1, join Dr. Charles Krikorian for an informal discussion of the legal implications of patent law and its ethical boundaries. We will see to answer questions like: Should a surgeon be able to prevent others from practicing his/her technique without first paying a license?, What is different about drug company patents and patents for surgical techniques?, Why are gene companies unable to patent their discoveries?, and other questions about the legal limits of patent monopolies. The discussion will be held in the Life Science Auditorium (LS 111) at 3:30. Coffee and cookies will be provided. Special thanks to the Biology Department and SAF for their help in making this lecture possible.

Free Speech and Your Employer on Twitter

There has been a flurry of news coverage over the post that David W. Guth, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Kansas, posted on twitter the same day as the tragic mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Prof. Guth tweeted, "The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you."

The tweet set off a maelstorm on social media, and on Thursday of that week the University of Kanasas released written statements condemning the professor's message. That Friday, the university placed him on leave. The professor released a statement to the Associated Press that same day, agreeing with the University's action in light of the threats that he and others had received.

Yesterday, Chronicle blogger Robert Jenkins released an interesting op-ed piece called "Speech in the Balance" which argues that even though many of us might disagree with what was said (for a multitude of reasons), he certainly did have a right to speak his mind without penalty.

What do you think about this news issue? Does Professor Guth have the right to make these kinds of statements on Twitter (or other social media platforms) with impunity?

Does the University of Kansas have the right to put Prof. Guth on paid leave because of his statement? Does their statement that it was done, "to prevent disruptions to the learning environment for students, the school of journalism, and the university," seem adequate?

Should employers have the right to discipline employees for what they post on social media? Does a public university, who has a tradition of academic freedom, also have this right?

Science, Engineering & Ethics Play in Chicago Area, FREE TICKETS, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs"

Every year, Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences puts on a play seeks to inspire a cross-disciplinary dialogue about the role of science and technology in society. Called the that Engineering Transdisciplinary Outreach Project in the Arts (ETOPiA) project, performances are free and open to the public. 

This year, the 2013 ETOPiA production is  "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" and will star Lance Baker. The play runs from Sept. 27 - Oct. 20, Fri-Sat 8 pm, and Sun 2 pm, Tech Institute, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL.  

You can reserved tickets and the following URL or phone number. ADMISSION IS FREE so be sure to reserve in advance:  

        etopia.northwestern.edu  or 847-324-3294

A quick synopsis of the play: 
A harrowing tale of pride, beauty, lust, and industrial design, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS, illuminates how Jobs' obsessions have shaped our lives, taking the audience all the way to China to shine a light on our love affair with electronic gadgets and the human cost of creating them. After a public radio controversy on "This American Life" which featured the author Mike Daisey in 2012, the play was revised and all fiction stripped away to produce the current hard-hitting version.

The performance at last year's play, "The  How and the Why" was excellent, and reviews seem to show that this year's play will be equally thought-provoking. 

Hope to see you at one of the performances!