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Scholars have noted persistent high rates of agricultural health and safety incidents and the need to develop more effective interventions. Participatory research provides an avenue to broaden the prevailing research paradigms and approaches by allowing those most impacted to illuminate and work to solve those aspects of their lives. One such approach is photovoice, an emancipatory visual narrative approach. Yet, despite its broad appeal, photovoice can be hard to implement. In this article, we leverage our experience using photovoice for a farm children safety project to describe and reflect on the ethical and methodological aspects broadly relevant to agricultural health and safety topics. We first contextualize the tensions of navigating between photovoice, the research ethics committees (RECs) regulatory frameworks, and competing views on visual representations in agriculture. We then discuss the sources of risks to participants and researchers, how we addressed these risks, and how these risks unfolded during the research phase of the photovoice activity. We conclude with three lessons we (re)learned: the importance of collaborating with RECs, the need to increase preparation to limit psychological risks to participants and researchers, and avenues to augment the emancipatory power of photovoice in a virtual environment.

Service-learning activities, such as development projects organized under the Engineers Without Borders USA organization, are popular on many university campuses as a mechanism for providing applied, global learning experiences for both engineering and non-engineering students. Existing studies have found that these experiences are meaningful for students and help them to apply what they learn in the classroom to the “real world” while learning valuable teamwork, communication, project management, and other skills. In this paper, we report on our ongoing research about EWB-USA participation and outcomes and, using case studies from our ethnographic research, discuss barriers to EWB-USA project participation among less privileged students. The implications this issue has for institutions interested in using service-learning to meet core learning outcomes as well as the need to diversify service-learning will be considered.

This is a formal commentary, responding to Matthew Curran Benigni, Kenneth Joseph, and Kathleen Carley's contribution, "Online extremism and the communities that sustain it: Detecting the ISIS supporting community on Twitter". This brief review reflects on the ethics of big data research methodologies, and how novel methods complicate long-standing principles of research ethics. Specifically, the concept of the "data subject" as a corollary, or replacement, of "human subject" is considered.

The special issue collects a selection of papers presented during the Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiries (CEPE) 2013 conference. This is a series of conferences organized by the International Association for Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT) (http://inseit.net/), a professional organization formed in 2001 and which gathers experts in information and computer ethics prompting interdisciplinary research and discussions on ethical problems related to design and deployment of information and communication technologies (ICTs). During the past two decades, CEPE conferences have been a focal point for the research concerning crucial topics (Buchanan 1999, 2011), such as privacy (Hildebrandt, Mireille 2008), online trust (Taddeo 2010; Taddeo and Floridi 2011), online identity (Ess 2012), value-sensitive design (Friedman and Peter H. Kahn, Alan Borning 2006), cyber-warfare (Floridi and Taddeo 2014; Taddeo, Mariarosaria 2014), along with education and professional ethics (Buchanan and D. Ocholla 2011). In this special issue, we present the reader with six articles dwelling upon ethical problems characterizing contemporary information societies: The Democratic Governance of Information Societies: A Critique to the Theory of Stakeholders, Semantic Web Regulatory Models: Why Ethics Matter, The Realignment of the Sources of the Law and their Meaning in an Information Society, Levels of Trust in the Context of Machine Ethics, Developing Automated Deceptions and the Impact on Trust, and Moral Deskilling and Upskilling in a New Machine Age: Reflections on the Ambiguous Future of Character. In addition, this issue also includes a commentary describing the Online Manifesto Initiative; more on this presently. Media, academic articles, policy debates, and everyday discussions increasingly focus on the informational, technology-driven turn—the information revolution—that characterizes this historical moment, in which widely disseminated and radical changes simultaneously affect both individuals and societies. Over the past two decades, these Philos. Technol. (2015) 28:5–10 DOI 10.1007/s13347-015-0193-z

This chapter provides a broad overview of the technological landscape of today’s Internet and considers the ways in which Internet research, as an umbrella term, has morphed and changed into today’s big data infrastructure. It furthermore discusses the implications of these changes for ethical decision-making and conduct of research. The guiding anticipatory ethics approach of the Association of Internet Researchers is used as an ethical frame.

This paper examines the issues of boundaries in the increasingly complex work of e-research in general, and moves towards specific examples relevant to e-planning disciplines. It uses a framework of “research ethics 2.0,” and interrogates models of research ethics in novel research environments. Research ethics 2.0 as a framework forces us to move away from rigid models, monochronistic ways of thinking about ourselves in relation to research, to others, and to our environments, broadly conceived. Transformative research demands transformative models of research ethics.

This issue represents a unique perspective in information ethics at this moment in time. There is a change occurring; indeed, a transition has been under way for some time, from those who set the path, those who defined this field, to a newly minted body of scholars who see the context for the parameters of information ethics in a vastly different way. We, this field of information ethics, still grapple with the same fundamental definitions of information ethics as were presented in the 1980s, the "inception" of this discipline. We still think about issues of creation, access, control, and dissemination of information. Yet, what constitutes the definition of "information" and what constitutes those activities around information is dramatically different. James Moor was one of the first to call attention to the different nature of "computer" data, describing it as greased and malleable; he called attention to the "policy vacuums" and "conceptual muddles" created by digital data. Those characteristics articulated in the 1980s have indeed proven true, and even Moor may be surprised at the extent to which those very characteristics have transformed not only research and scholarship but individuals and societies themselves. We have seen such arguments for "everything is miscellaneous," and "the world is flat"-those are indicative of the collapsing parameters resultant from the ways in which we create, use, and disseminate information in this moment. This forces us to a broader question.Where is the discipline of information ethics? It is increasingly diffused. It is, simultaneously more important and less important than ever. It is ever important because every discipline essentially grapples now with information ethics issues, and because of that, its "significance" as a "stand- alone discipline" is called into question. Scholars from across an array of disciplines are engaging more directly with issues of data integrity, ethical research practices, privacy, autonomy, identity, trust, reality, data sharing, data manipulation, fragmentation, orientation. Information ethicists have made these issues explicit over the years, but increasingly, disciplinary specificity is collapsing and these issues certainly do not reside in any one clear domain. This is happening because of the nature of digital data which is causing every scholar, researcher, bureaucrat, and individual to think differently about their relationship with the world, in both physical and virtual realms. Information ethics scholarship is changing, pushing boundaries in its scope and reach. A physicist, Vlatko Vedra, recently described the theory of quantum information, that everything, the universe itself, is information. Information is superior. If we follow his lead, everything, then, is information ethics? With that, one might also argue that nothing is information ethics, a stance I do not support.Information ethics has co- existed along with other "ethics" for many years: computer ethics, business ethics, bioethics. Each of these has a corresponding "disciplinary home." Information ethics has had a rocky home in library and information studies, and it is notable to consider Enright's perspectives on this. It is also notable to consider the numbers of LIS programs that still have no ethics course; there is an implicit assumption that because of accreditation standards, ethics will be interwoven across the curriculum, an assumption I question. Ethics is often seen as an afterthought in professional programs, accreditation standards notwithstanding. Other disciplines, for example, those in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), debate heartily what mode is best for ethics education-stand alone courses or infusion models. I have not seen the same curricular debates in LIS. More commonly, LIS ethics are introduced through the standard codes of ethics. Professional ethics are symbolically embodied in codes-codes of ethics, as Zaiane, presents, are universal guiding documents, but do not ensure ethical behavior or professionalism. …

This paper explores the growing concerns with computer science research, and in particular, computer security research and its relationship with the committees that review human subjects research. It offers cases that review boards are likely to confront, and provides a context for appropriate consideration of such research, as issues of bots, clouds, and worms enter the discourse of human subjects review.

IntroductionTraditionally, information ethics focuses on the moral questions relating to the life cycle of information as it pertains to its generation, gathering, organization, storage, retrieval, and use. As a field it broadly examines issues related to privacy, security, access to information, intellectual freedom, quality and integrity of information, as well as intellectual property rights. In addition, the broader domain of professional ethics is of import, encompassing the ways we as professionals engage with, and respond and react to those ethical issues. The main stakeholders impacted by this array of ethical issues can be divided into three groups. These are the creators/distributors of information products and services, information mediators, including librarians, and the information users. Information and communication technology (ICT) supports the different information life cycle activities and plays a pivotal role in the shaping, understanding, and defining of information ethics.The development of modern ICT has profoundly changed the information and knowledge landscape, and as a result, has fundamentally impacted the field of information ethics. In this article we will examine this impact and illustrate how modern ICT has changed the scope and application of information ethics in the discipline of library and information science, and consider the implications for embedding information ethics squarely within and across an LIS curriculum, in an immersive fashion. We thus structure the article in the following manner: We introduce the topic by outlining the impact of modern ICT on nearly all human activities. We, furthermore, elaborate on the profound change that modern ICT brings about with regards to the unbundling, distribution, reproduction, and manipulation of information. To gain a clear understanding of how ICT impacted information ethics it is important to understand the relationship between technology and society. We discuss this relationship briefly in the next part of the article. Based on this relationship we illustrate in the final section how modern ICT has influenced the field of information ethics, and how we as LIS educators must consider this impact. This first column sets the context for a deeper consideration of information ethics pedagogy, which will be explored further in subsequent issues of JIE.Everything Is InformationModern information and communication technology, which is defined by Preston (2004, p. 35) as "the cluster or interrelated systems of technological innovations in the fields of microelectronics, computing, electronic communications including broadcasting and the Internet," bring about a profound transformation in the information and knowledge landscape and has radically changed most of our way of living and the way in which we do things. As such it is seen as ubiquitous, invading most facets of our existence. It has created a new and unprecedented form of dependence and most organizations and institutions, including libraries, rely on some form of ICT for their daily operations. It is clear that ICT has become the default technology for most of our socio-economic activities and the organizational changes and benefits that it brought about are no longer in question (Introna, 2005).The impact of these technologies arises from three of its characteristics. In the first place it is an enabling technology that has not only become instrumental in most of our activities, but also contributes to further technological development and changes. Secondly, it has grown, in terms of its capacity, exponentially over the last couple of years and thirdly, it has become cheaper, making it more affordable and accessible to nearly everyone (Freeman & Louca, 2002).As such, the introduction of new and modern ICT opens up new possibilities for libraries and information agencies. The most important is the digitization and accompanying manipulation of information. …

The Internet has been used as a place for and site of an array of research activities. From online ethnographies to public data sets and online surveys, researchers and research regulators have struggled with an array of ethical issues around the conduct of online research. This paper presents a discussion and findings from Buchanan and Ess's study on US-based institutional review boards and the state of internet research ethics.

In this issue of JIE, readers will be immersed in an emerging and fascinating research field, a sphere that fits squarely in the larger domains of information and research ethics. Internet Research Ethics (IRE) has been growing steadily since the late 1990s, with many disciplinary examinations of what it means to conduct research-ethically-in online or Internet-based environments. Seminar guidelines, through such influential bodies as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1999), Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Working Group (2002), and the American Psychological Association's Working Group (2004) (see Kraut, et al.) have been developed; three edited collections appeared in the last few years (Buchanan, 2004a; Johns, Chen, & Hall, 2003; Thorseth, 2003), and a plethora of interdisciplinary and international conversations have occurred in the face of IRE.The issues involved are indeed complex, significant, and truly philosophically robust. Ranging from traditional research ethics notions of informed consent and respect for persons to such legal issues as loss of reputation and liability to larger, more complex issues such as privacy and autonomy, IRE contributes to a wide range of ethical, legal, and policy debates. Multiple layers of difference contribute to the complexity surrounding IRE: disciplinary differences in and to research, from the humanities to social sciences, for instance; national and international laws and policies differing over research ethics and human subjects protections; differences across the continuum of research done online, ranging from "simple" surveys to in-depth ethnographic studies of online communities, and so on. Much additional scholarship is necessary in this field, as online research is burgeoning while many researchers fall short of fulfilling their ethical responsibilities in online environments, not due to intentional malfeasance but to ignorance. A broader goal of this issue is to shed light on the larger domain of information ethics and how thinking first and foremost about this realm and a global information ethics helps us as researchers in online environments.The articles brought together in this issue come from a range of disciplines and from some of the foremost thinkers in information ethics in general and IRE in particular. First, Herman Tavani sets the stage with a framework for examining moral, legal, and social issues involving cybertechnology-the field he calls "cyberethics." Tavani's discussion provides a thorough review of the field, which should help us as researchers in understanding the complexities of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and how researchers fit into this scheme. Whether or not cyber-, information, or Internet research ethics issues are indeed novel, as Tavani questions, IRE often finds itself embedded in the sorts of policy vacuums described. And, as Tavani carefully describes, different modes of ethics, from philosophical to descriptive to professional, inform us on multiple levels, while his methodological framework contributes to a researcher's starting point concerning fundamental ethical issues. We have seen these levels in the emergent IRE debate, and can refer to Tavani's discussion as IRE continues to grow in scope.From Tavani's large-scale discussion, we move more directly into IRE to consider some of its critical aspects. First, Annette Markham, who prominently placed Internet ethnography on the international research agenda with her Life Online: Researching Real Experience in Virtual Space (1998) examines research itself, questioning the concept of ethics and how it dictates method, often resulting in compromised ethics and methods. Markham contextualizes her thoughtful discussion by asking questions of seminal importance to IRE: Who owns online data? Are online communities private or public spaces? How do we gain informed consent? How does one verify the age or vulnerability of participants? …

IntroductionThe concept of copyright or other ownership rights has been discussed in the literature as an impediment to the free flow of information within an institutional context (e.g., Rice, 2001; 2002) This impediment is often presented as a rubric of two conflicting rights: property rights (copyright) and communicative rights (free speech), which we are calling rights of inquiry, in the context of the academy, though these rights of inquiry are not limited to the academy alone but embody a public-wide plethora of rights to inquire, read, receive, discuss and debate, and share information. To illustrate the position of developing threats against these rights of inquiry, we use developments in the United States. This is done for several reasons, foremost because the legal infrastruc- ture is most prone to facilitate that threat, e.g., through implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty of 1996, and second, because the conflicting right of freedom of inquiry is also well, if not most, developed in the United States, as codified in the First Amendment to the Constitution.In the US, we have accepted free speech as a constitutional right, or at least its formulation as a right in balance with others, such as a right against which the government may not intrude, or as a private right (for instance, copyright). The lack of free speech as a constitutional right in countries other than the US, may however, account for the lack of development in the legal rubric of communicative rights such as the right to speak, read, and inquire. Yet, Hugenholtz (2001), in his review of European case law, posits a cluster of reasons (natural law mystique, reluctance to fundamental rights in relationships between citizens, lack of constitutional adjudication mechanisms) "for the late development of European interest in the potential copyright/free speech conflict."1 At least in the United States, with its historical development of strong speech rights, efforts to use other legal rights, public or private, to curtail those rights is an effective vehicle to control and curtail inquiry.Thus, we can ask: Can copyright and other private ownership rights over information (such as a contract) exist along side free speech rights, rights of the academy to inquire, to read, receive, and share information? Or, asked in the negative, what do threats to recent legal developments in the area of copyright and related rights pose for the academy of inquiring minds, and the broader process of expression and inquiry in society? This question bridges legal and ethical grounds, and reveals a potentially uneasy relationship between the two. One approach (Watt, 2000) posits, "In general, new cultural creations are more valuable in the hands of consumers than if they are retained by their creators, and so it is important to consider how such intellectual property can best be transferred between members of society in order to take full advantage of it."2 And, moreover, considering a global perspective, "An international intellectual property regime, designed to facilitate the production and use of the global public good-knowledge-in a way that sustains high rates of growth and is consistent with broad notions of equity, must balance a variety of concerns, including dynamic and static efficiency and the use of the global knowledge commons."3Yet, beyond the broader notion of consumer welfare and inquiry, we focus more specifically here on the concept of the academy:Universities to date have been places where the rewards to individuals for the creation of knowledge have flowed from its diffusion rather than from keeping it a secret or placing a price on it. The diffusion of knowledge is a precondition to rewards of peer recognition and reputation. It is through the many individual acts of communication of their research at conferences, classes, in conversation, through journals, on the Internet and so on that researchers build the publicness of knowledge, a publicness that travels across many sectors of society and across borders. …

This paper stems from the results of a systematic study of research library policy regarding application and interpretation of copyright law to reserves and electronic reserves. A thorough legal framework is provided from which the study's results are interpreted, and suggestions for research library compliance are provided.

The Ninth International Conference on Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE 2011) was held in Milwaukee, WI. Four papers originally presented at that conference are included in this issue of Computers and Society . The selected papers examine a wide range of information/computer-ethics-related issues, and taken together, they show great diversity in the field of information/computer ethics. We are continually negotiating with ethics, law, and policy in our technology-driven activities in the interconnected global arena. As we consider the themes within and among the papers here, we encourage readers to think deeply about fundamental principles such as trust, accountability, anonymity, and human rights. Each of these papers takes us back, philosophically, to seminal and long-standing principles of ethics, broadly speaking, and then, brings us forward, to significant and contemporary challenges in ethics. The authors each weave narratives about our place and space as individuals, as members of cultural collectives, and evolving socio-political-technical norms around us, governing us, defining us.

IntroductionThe American Library Association's first consideration of a formalized code of ethics dates to i930, with its suggested code of ethics, and with subsequent statements, revisions, or developments in i939, i975, i979, i98i, and i995. Ethics has continued to play an important role in the library and information science field, and significant ethical issues have recently been receiving great attention in light of filtering and CIPA/COPA, as well as privacy, intellectual freedom, and related rights under attack from the USA Patriot Act. We in the information professions must remain committed to the ethical principles presented by the ALA's Code, as foundations to our existence.And although the ALA continues to be the major accrediting body for schools of library and information science, it does not regulate or standardize the teaching of information ethics, nor does it require that accredited schools o∂er coursework in ethics. Some professional organizations, such as the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), has gone this further step and requires computer science students to take ethics coursework totaling i6 hours, with i0 Social/Professional/Ethical units (Tavani, 2003). In the library and information science field, it is assumed that major principles of ethics will be discussed through, for example, management or collection development, but many schools of library and information science have developed elective courses which delve more deeply into the myriad of information ethics issues facing professionals today. Surveys conducted by Buchanan (2003) reveal that overwhelmingly students in the information professions feel that ethics coursework should be required. As the range of ethical issues facing LIS students continues to grow and become ever more complex, such courses may very well come to be required by MLIS programs of study.The introduction and use of the term "information ethics" originates with librarian Robert Hauptman in the late i980s, when Raphael Cappura in Germany also began using the term. Some have defined the domain of information ethics as "all of the ethical issues related to the production, storage, access, and dissemination of information" (Weckert and Adeney, i997, p. ix). Much of what we discuss and teach in schools of LIS revolves in and around these four areas-production, storage, access, and dissemination of information. Within all of these realms, the array of ethical issues has grown quite large and complex: There are many information ethics issues, many ways of teaching ethics, and much diverse reading in this area. As new information professionals leave our schools, they must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to embrace and resolve ethical dilemmas. Just as we teach our students the theory and practice of reference or management, for instance, in preparation for work in the field, we should also teach ethics. Thus, the remainder of this paper surveys ethics courses and their coverage in accredited schools of LIS in the United States and makes recommendations for more consideration of ethics throughout LIS curricula.MethodsA list of all Library and Information Studies schools in the United States2 was obtained from the website of the American Library Association (ALA) in the directory of ALA-accredited Master's programs: Forty-nine ALA-accredited programs were included in the analysis.3, 4The websites of the forty-nine accredited programs were searched to find out whether they o∂ered a graduate-level ethics course. This included searching all posted class schedules and course descriptions. Course schedule/description dates were checked for currency to ensure appropriate representation. Professors teaching the class had to be located, sometimes, by contacting the school or department head; those teaching a graduate level, for-credit ethics class were contacted with a request (sent via e-mail) to provide a course syllabus. In some cases, the syllabi were available on the school web site and it was not necessary to contact the professor. …

Institutions, as we know, are quickly embracing distance education, in the forms of online or Web-based courses and programs at phenomenal rates. Oftentimes, however, significant institutional structures, including such areas as registration, advising, library, and technical support are overlooked until too late. Institutions must have clear, well-planned strategies in place in order to maximize their students' learning experiences and overall satisfaction with distance education programs to avoid attrition and maximize retention. This paper provides many useful and easy to implement strategies for institutions considering distance education, as well as for those already engaged in serving students online. In particular, this paper explores experiences of students pursuing the Master of Library and Information Science degree through a Web-based program. Their challenges will be described, and the institutional responses and solutions will be offered.

This article explores recent developments in the regulation of Internet speech, in particular, injurious or defamatory speech and the impact the attempts at regulation are having on the `body' in the sense of the individual person who speaks through the medium of the Internet and upon those harmed by that speech. The article proceeds in three sections. First, a brief history of the legal attempts to regulate defamatory Internet speech in the United States is presenteds a short comparative discussion of defamation law in the UK and Australia is included. As discussed below, this regulation has altered the traditional legal paradigm of responsibility and, as a result, creates potential problems for the future of unrestricted and even anonymous speech on the Internet. Second, an ethical assessment is made of the defamatory speech environment in order to determine which actors have moral responsibility for the harm caused by defamatory speech. This moral assessment is compared to the developing and anticipated legal paradigm to identify possible conformity of moral and legal tenants or to recognize the conflict between morality and law in assigning responsibility to defamatory actors. This assessment then concludes with possible suggestions for changes in the legal climate governing the regulation of defamatory speech on the Internet, as well as prediction of the result should the legal climate continue to develop on its present course. This is not to suggest that all law, or even the law of defamation, be structured to reflect the subjectivity of a moral construct, but since it is the authors position that the legal assignment of liability in online settings is misaligned, this reflection can serve as beginning reassessment of that assignment.

The use of the Internet as a research tool or venue has grown exponentially, and with such growth, continued attention to an array of ethical issues is necessary. One of the long-standing ethical issues in Internet research revolves around privacy and identifiability. This paper will contextualize the current state of Internet research and its ongoing ethical considerations with attention to a new "default of identifiability." It describes issues related to Internet-related human subjects research, though it is not intended to align with regulatory guidance. Instead, the paper seeks to stimulate further discussion across disciplines about the ethics of contemporary Internet research.

This article presents an overview of significant issues facing contemporary information professionals. As the world of information continues to grow at unprecedented speed and in unprecedented volume, questions must be faced by information professionals. Will we participate in the worldwide mythology of equal access for all, or will we truly work towards this debatable goal? Will we accept the narrowing of choice for our corresponding increasing diverse clientele? Such questions must be considered in a holistic context and an understanding of the many levels of information inequities is requisite. Beginning with an historical perspective, Buchanan presents Mustapha Masmoudi‘s seminal review of forms of information inequities. She then describes qualitative forms of inequities, such as information imperialism and cultural bias embedded in such practices as cataloging and classification. Following, a review of quantitative inequities is presented. Such issues as the growing commoditization of information and information services demand attention from the ethical perspective. And, finally, the Internet and implications surrounding the world-wide dissemination of information is discussed. The article concludes with an extraction form Richard Sclove‘s Democracy and Technology, and asks that we as information professionals actively examine the information industry around us and demand a more democratic process within which to work.

In the global information age, ethics and ethical practices have become increasingly complex and ambiguous. What does such profuse and rapid technological change mean to society's ethical principles? In fact, how is "society" defined and understood in this increasingly global environment where technology bridges temporal and spatial boundaries? What are the ethical consequences of information'overload? These are underlying questions which must be extended to such institutions as the academic library in the face of structural transformation. This article enforces the idea that only in the face of ethical reevaluation is such structural transformation possible and indeed desirable.

In this panel, we explore some of the issues surrounding the ethical review of computer security research by institutional review boards (IRBs) and other ethical review bodies. These issues include interpretation of legal language defining how ethical review is to be performed, the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on research methods and ethical analysis, how terms like "risk" and "harm" must be interpreted in the light of ICT. We examine two case studies in which these issues surface, and conclude by providing some ideas on the path forward.

A survey of 750 university human Research Ethics Boards (HRECs) in the United States revealed that Internet research protocols involving online or Web surveys are the type most often reviewed (94% of respondents), indicating the growing prevalence of this methodology for academic research. Respondents indicated that the electronic and online nature of these survey data challenges traditional research ethics principles such as consent, risk, privacy, anonymity, confidentiality, and autonomy, and adds new methodological complexities surrounding data storage, security, sampling, and survey design. Interesting discrepancies surfaced among respondents regarding strengths and weaknesses within extant guidelines, which are highlighted throughout the paper. The paper concludes with considerations and suggestions towards consistent protocol review of online surveys to ensure appropriate human subjects protections in the face of emergent electronic tools and methodologies.

The popularity of Web 2.0 has changed communication methods, particularly for the younger generation, who want relationships and engagement with organisations. The changes in digital communication have been enormous in the last ten years and have led to the trend of online communities, often referred to as electronic villages. Sporting organisations and their members were surveyed with regard to their particular communication needs, examining their communication strategies and their acceptance of the latest communication methods. Our findings suggest that many organisations consider communication as an afterthought. We argue that sporting organisations are not making the most of the latest communication methods, nor are they progressing with their members' communication desires or what their members are actually seeking. The members want electronic, two-way and fast communication tools, including electronic newsletters, blogs, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Short Message Service (SMS) and bulletin boards.

The Internet, as a global research phenomenon, has developed along two parallel lines: as a medium for research (e.g., databases, electronic indexes, online catalogs) and as a field or locale of research (e.g., MUDs, MOOs, online communities, Usenet, listservs, blogs, etc.). This article will discuss this second phenomenon, and the ethical implications that arise with such research endeavors, an emerging field known as Internet Research Ethics (IRE). Specifically, this article will call attention to the major areas of online research ethics, while acknowledging that hard-and-fast “answers” to some of the questions are elusive. IRE fits into a larger framework of research and information ethics, both of which have a longer history and more firmly established research base from which to inform this growing field.

This chapter presents a case study of research conducted in the state of Wisconsin, USA, on the awareness of and knowledge surrounding ethical and legal uses of technology by primary teachers, administrators, and technology coordinators. The authors use the term responsible technologies to define the concept of ethical and legal awareness; the chapter reports on the findings from the pre- and post-in-service surveys, and makes recommendations for greater awareness of the ethical and legal implications surrounding technology use in general, and surrounding copyright in particular.

Contemporary distance education has its roots in early forms of postal correspondence study but has evolved to sophisticated, technologically grounded forms of education. It has progressed from simplistic forms of written, correspondence study, known as the first wave of distance education (1870-1970), to early forms of television, satellite, and compressed video delivery and open education, known as the second wave (1970-1992), to its present stage of computer-based delivery, mainly over the Internet and its multimedia component, the World Wide Web (WWW). This form constitutes the third wave or phase.

What a long strange trip the Internet has had. From its inception and use by the American military to the billions of users world-wide who log on daily, the Internet is both the promise of access to information and the peril of surveillance and a means of curtailing intellectual freedom. This paper will review this continuum, paying close attention to recent developments in the United States that fuel the dichotomous debate surrounding intellectual freedom.

This chapter acknowledges the challenges surrounding assessment techniques in online education at the higher education level. It asks specifically, “How do we know our online students are learning?” To get closer to answering this question with confidence, various strategies ranging from participation techniques to online group work, peer and self-assessment, and journals and portfolios are described. The role of online mentoring as a supplementary strategy is also introduced. The chapter concludes with a survey of advantages and disadvantages of the various strategies.

This work provides a look at the emerging field of online research and the corresponding ethical dilemmas associated with it. Issues related to traditional research ethics such as autonomy or respect for persons, justice, and beneficence are extended into the virtual realm.

Munitions are critical war-fighting commodities of the modern military. Historically, this industry included a wide variety of weapons: small arms, mortars, cannons, artillery, gun munitions, bombs, rockets, missiles, chemical munitions, mines, demolition material, grenades, flares, torpedoes, nuclear weapons and pyrotechnics- without which a military cannot fight successfully. Munitions, however, are in the midst of a transition from the traditional free-fall weapons (dumb bombs) to precision guided munitions (PGMs), with the ability to hit specific targets across increasing distances during all-weather conditions with minimal collateral damage. This paper focuses on the ongoing transition. PGMs are becoming more complex and much more expensive. They are requiring increasing amounts of national imagery and communication resources. PGMs promise a greatly improved war-fighting capability, but their management within the Department of Defense (DoD) is fragmented, both within and among the services. Finally, munitions, even the preferred precision guided weapons, are not adequately funded because of other modernization requirements. Budget reductions in both the United States and Europe are driving a wave of consolidations on both sides of the Atlantic. Competition among the remaining firms is fierce. Accomplishing Joint Vision 2020 (JV 2020) goals of precision engagement and focused logistics will require more resources and long range disciplined planning devoted to munitions.

Traditional and Web-based learning environments in an MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science) program setting are compared. Using pre- and post-questionnaires administered to students and in-depth student and instructor interviews, the authors investigate differences in perceptions and outcomes in each environment. The authors found no significant differences in student performance between the two forms. Students did perceive differences in the educational experiences between both approaches, emphasizing the greater need for specific student and instructor qualities for success in the Web-based environment. Differences were also found between instructors and students in the importance placed on factors that determine course success. Both instructors and students must recognize the constraints and opportunities presented by the Web environment, which, when used in conjunction with other technologies, permit multiple forms of contact for effective learning. Implications for learning and curriculum design are discussed.

Dans le monde arabe, les facteurs socio-politiques et economiques affectent, davantage qu'en Occident, l'infrastructure de l'information