INTSTDS 5195:  Ethics in the Information Age: Technology for the Public Interest

The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically hastened the transformation of our world via information and Internet technologies.  Most of us now work, shop, socialize, and learn through digital media.  Nevertheless, many of the people who are firmly in the middle of this transformation lack the essential skills to manage it effectively.  Politicians and educators often lack technical skills.  Those with an interest in computer sciences and security, on the other hand, often lack training in ethics and public policy.  This course seeks to bridge this gap so that those with a background in information technologies will be able to participate meaningfully in public policy discussions about issues such as privacy and surveillance, freedom of expression on digital platforms, cybercrime, and political conflict in the digital world.

This course will provide advanced undergraduates and masters’ students with an introduction to ethics and technology so that they may think more systematically about public policy issues in information technology.  It will introduce students to several different schools of ethical thinking so that they may better understand how to reconcile their own values and priorities with those of others.  It will also present them with a survey of the challenges that we must overcome to maximize the benefits (and minimize the risks) that information technologies pose to our private lives, our national security, and our social and economic well-being. 

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis (lewis.317@osu.edu)

COMPLETELY ONLINE

Undergraduate class #:  22626

Graduate class #:  22627

Course learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students should successfully be able to:

• Understand how different ethical systems shape our values and decision making
• Use this understanding to better appreciate the values and decision making of others, enabling collaborative decision making for public benefit
• Apply systematic ethical thinking to contemporary public policy issues in information technologies
• Think critically about these issues from different perspectives, synthesize these interpretations in the form of persuasive arguments, and present these arguments formally, both in written and in oral form