New Resource Guide for Scientific Resarch Ethics

A new research guide on the ethics of scientific research and the responsible conduct of research has just been published by CSEP. The guide is available off of IIT's Galvin Library web site. It includes resources on animal research subjects, authorship and peer review, conflict of interest, human research participants, research misconduct, and links to cases studies. Please let us know if you have any suggestions of materials to add to the guide, or if you would like us to add a section on a different topic.

A new image for CSEP

For the past few months we have been working extremely hard on redesigning our web site. The new site is going to blend in with the overall design for the Illinois Institute of Technology, include a number of much-needed updates in our site navigation, a complete overhaul of the Codes of Ethics Collection, and a number of other tweaks to our electronic collections and resource guides. So far, everything is going relatively smoothly, except for picking out a new image for the site.

With the help of Galvin, we have designed a new icon for CSEP. The question is, what color should it be? Our first one seemed to be a bit too dark for the web site...


So, we went for a more blue look, that seemed a bit easier to read...



Any thoughts? Please post your comments, ideas for a new color, etc. This image is going to be on this page, so let us know what you think! (This is a test version of the CSEP site, so beware of bugs).

Spring Break Hours

The Center and the Center Library will be open over spring break during our normal hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

EthicShare - a Virtual Community for Ethics Research and Exchange

During this past weekend, I had the pleasure to attend a session about the web resource "EthicShare" at the annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. Developed by the University of Minnesota with support from the Andrew W.Mellon Foundation and other partner universities, this virtual community is for scholars working in the field of ethics. The first version of this site will focus specifically on bioethics. The site includes a database of literature on all aspects of bioethics (including quite a bit about the ethics of nanotechnology) and the ability to link directly to the full-text of an article through your university library. The site also includes the ability to tag articles, upload your own papers to the database, and to participate in online discussions about a wide range of ethics issues. At the moment, the number of individuals using the site is rather small, but as the community grows, this could become an extremely rich resource for scholars and students of applied ethics.

Limited hours for CSEP Library - March 5-6th

Due to senior staff attending the annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics and the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl National Competition on March 5-6th, the CSEP Library will be open from 9:30-4 on Thursday, and from 9-4 on Friday. We will resume our normal hours of 9-5 on Monday, March 9th. If you have any reference queries, please direct them to Galvin Library's reference desk or if it is not urgent, email your question to us at cseplibrary@iit.edu.

Best of luck to all the participating Ethics Bowl Teams!

Mapping Study of Regulation and Governance of Nanotechnologies

Last week, the European FramingNano project released the major report "Mapping Study on Regulation and Governance of Nanotechnologies. This publication gives a full picture of the regulatory activities, public engagement projects, and other research projects countries and regulatory/standard-setting agencies around the world are taking to address the human health, safety and environmental impacts of nanotechnologies. The report looks at the debate about the risks and concerns related to nanotechnology research and development, and also examines the different regulatory measures being considered and adopted by countries (using existing regulatory frameworks, voluntary measures, standardization, etc). The final section of the report includes a detailed summary by country of the proposed and existing strategies and action plans for nanotechnology, ongoing research projects worldwide, and a snapshot of the activities of standards organizations in regard to nanotechnology.

This report is one of the best publications currently available on the current regulatory activities of countries around the world, especially in Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia. In the next few weeks, we will be going through the report, and adding links to the references not before included in the NanoEthicsBank.

Engineering Ethics Resources

Every few months, I try and make time to do a review of our online resource guides to add material, take down broken links, and see what kinds of new resources are available. In the field of engineering and science ethics, the Online Ethics Center (OEC) at the National Academy of Engineering has consistently been one of the top resources available to students and scholars in this subject area. Covering a wide array of topics from responsible research to environmental ethics, the OEC is an extremely good place for students to begin their research, for practitioners to gain an introduction to what is meant by professional ethics, or for instructors looking to integrate ethics into their professional courses. This is also an especially good place to look for or discuss ethics cases.

I am always looking for new resources in this and other areas of professional ethics, so please feel free to suggest other web sites, articles or books you have come across!