MichaelZimmer.org

I’ve received a preview copy of an important forthcoming volume, “Design and Ethics: Reflections on Practice,” edited by Emma Felton, Oksana Zelenko, Suzi Vaughan. This book marks an important contribution to the growing “ethical design” or “values in design” community of scholars and practitioners. From the publisher: The value of design for contributing to environmental [...]

The program for the 2011 Computer Ethics/Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) conference has been posted, and features an impressive collection of international scholars and students in computer & information ethics, presenting papers on topics in the following themes: Intercultural & Interdisciplinary Computer Ethics Emerging Technology Philosophy of the Mind Ethics & Information Professionals Privacy & Anonymity Ethical [...]

The Daily Beast’s Emily Brill criticizes Jonathan Zittrain for publishing an op-ed critical of Apple, without specific disclosure of the fact that his academic home, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, receives funding from some of Apple’s competitors, such as Google and Microsoft.

Brill seems determined to explore (and accuse) whether Zittrain — and the Berkman Center generally — succumbs to the pressures of funding sources in forming research conclusions and policy opinions.

Of course he doesn’t.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Buchanan and Charles Ess for being awarded an NSF grant to create a much-needed repository and advisory board to address the challenges that emerging Internet and Web 2.0 platforms are placing on research ethics. I’m thrilled to be among the senior personnel on this grant, and look forward to the collaboration and [...]

I’m a big fan of the New York Times Magazine‘s weekly column, The Ethicist. I’m not a big fan, however, of the column’s namesake, Randy Cohen. He is often much too consequentialist for my liking, too simplistic is his ethical analyses, and his attempts to include humor in his responses typically fail (and are an [...]

I’ve returned from the 8th International Conference of Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry in Corfu, Greece, where I presented an early draft of a paper based on my critique of the “Taste, Ties, and Time” Facebook data release. The paper was well-received, but I have work ahead of me to improve the manuscript prior to publication. [...]

I am pleased to announce that the Center for Information Policy Research and the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are hosting an important conference on “The Ethics of Information Organization“. The full CFP is below: The Ethics of Information Organization May 22-23, 2009 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Information organization (IO), like other [...]

Reporting again from the SAA conference, I attended an excellent panel this morning on “Archival Ethics with Changing Practices: The Impact of Technology” (program; wiki page), featuring some excellent presentations on the way new information technology is spurring new ethical dilemmas for archives and archivists of all shapes and colors: Technology is changing the way [...]

I’m spending the next few days at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists in San Francisco, and I’m looking forward to learning more about many of the ethical and policy issues confronted by archivists in an age of growing digitization and Web-based archival services. This afternoon I had the pleasure of [...]

The Information Ethics special interest group of the Association for Library and Information Science Education has released a statement on information ethics designed to guide library educators and educational institutions in integrating information ethics in all aspects of education, research, scholarship, service, and practice in library and information studies and in other related professions. The [...]