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The purpose of this paper is to examine how robotics program developers perceived the role of emulation of human ethics when programming robots for use in educational settings. A purposive sampling of online robotics program developer professional sites which focused on the role of emulation of human ethics used when programming robots for use in educational settings was included in the study. Content related to robotics program developers’ perceptions on educational uses of robots and ethics were analyzed.

The design for this study was a qualitative summative content analysis. The researchers analyzed keywords related to a phenomenon. The phenomenon was the emulation of human ethics programmed in robots. Articles selected to be analyzed in this study were published by robotics program developers who focused on robots and ethics in the education. All articles analyzed in this study were posted online, and the public has complete access to the studies.

Robotics program developers viewed the importance of situational human ethics interpretations and implementations. To facilitate flexibility, robotics program developers programmed robots to search computer-based ethics related research, frameworks and case studies. Robotics program developers acknowledged the importance of human ethics, but they felt more flexibility was needed in the role of how classroom human ethical models were created, developed and used. Some robotic program developers expressed questions and concerns about the implementations of flexible robot ethical accountability levels and behaviors in the educational setting. Robotics program developers argued that educational robots were not designed or programmed to emulate human ethics.

One limitation of the study was 32 online, public articles written by robotics program designers analyzed through qualitative content analysis to find themes and patterns. In qualitative content analysis studies, findings may not be as generalizable as in quantitative studies. Another limitation was only a limited number of articles written by robotics programs existed which addressed robotics and emulation of human ethics in the educational setting.

The significance of this study is the need for a renewed global initiative in education to promote debates, research and on-going collaboration with scientific leaders on ethics and programming robots. The implication for education leaders is to provide ongoing professional development on the role of ethics in education and to create best practices for using robots in education to promote increased student learning and enhance the teaching process.

The implications of this study are global. All cultures will be affected by the robotics’ shift in how students are taught ethical decision making in the educational setting. Robotics program developers will create computational educational moral models which will replace archetypal educational ethics frameworks. Because robotics program developers do not classify robots as human, educators, parents and communities will continue to question the use of robots in educational settings, and they will challenge robotics ethical dilemmas, moral standards and computational findings. The examination of robotics program developers’ perspectives through different lens may help close the gap and establish a new understanding among all stakeholders.

Four university doctoral faculty members conducted this content analysis study. After discussions on robotics and educational ethics, the researchers discovered a gap in the literature on the use of robots in the educational setting and the emulation of human ethics in robots. Therefore, to explore the implications for educators, the researchers formed a group to research the topic to learn more about the topic. No personal gains resulted from the study. All research was original. All cultures will be affected by the robotics’ shift in how students are taught ethical decision making in the educational setting. Robotics program developers will create computational educational moral models which will replace archetypal educational ethics frameworks. Because robotics program developers do not classify robots as human, educators, parents and communities will continue to question the use of robots in educational settings, and they will challenge robotics ethical dilemmas, moral standards, and computational findings. The examination of robotics program developers’ perspectives through different lens may help close the gap and establish a new understanding among all stakeholders.

The paper aims to present a framework for discussing ethics and computational design.

The main propositions of computational design are presented, discussed according to different authors and contrasted with cybernetic principles.

The paper finds that with algorithmic and parametric procedures, architects are using computation to reach a hitherto unknown ease of modelling multiple iterations of a design, so they can expand their possible design scenarios and cope with the uncertainties of ill-defined tasks. However, this strategy faces an ethical limitation because they fail to extend this openness to the final segment of the design chain, the user in the act of dwelling.

The paper brings a cybernetic perspective for discussing the often-overlooked ethical implications of computational strategies in design.

Applied computational ontologies (ACOs) are increasingly used in data science domains to produce semantic enhancement and interoperability among divergent data. The purpose of this paper is to propose and implement a methodology for researching the sociotechnical dimensions of data-driven ontology work, and to show how applied ontologies are communicatively constituted with ethical implications.

The underlying idea is to use a data assemblage approach for studying ACOs and the methods they use to add semantic complexity to digital data. The author uses a mixed methods approach, providing an analysis of the widely used Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) through digital methods and visualizations, and presents historical research alongside unstructured interview data with leading experts in BFO development.

The author found that ACOs are products of communal deliberation and decision making across institutions. While ACOs are beneficial for facilitating semantic data interoperability, ACOs may produce unintended effects when semantically enhancing data about social entities and relations. ACOs can have potentially negative consequences for data subjects. Further critical work is needed for understanding how ACOs are applied in contexts like the semantic web, digital platforms, and topic domains. ACOs do not merely reflect social reality through data but are active actors in the social shaping of data.

The paper presents a new approach for studying ACOs, the social impact of ACO work, and describes methods that may be used to produce further applied ontology studies.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the question of equipping fully autonomous robotic weapons with the capacity to kill. Current ideas concerning the feasibility and advisability of developing and deploying such weapons, including the proposal that they be equipped with a so-called “ethical governor”, are reviewed and critiqued. The perspective adopted for this study includes software engineering practice as well as ethical and legal aspects of the use of lethal autonomous robotic weapons.

In the paper, the author survey and critique the applicable literature.

In the current paper, the author argue that fully autonomous robotic weapons with the capacity to kill should neither be developed nor deployed, that research directed toward equipping such weapons with a so-called “ethical governor” is immoral and serves as an “ethical smoke-screen” to legitimize research and development of these weapons and that, as an ethical duty, engineers and scientists should condemn and refuse to participate in their development.

This is a new approach to the argument for banning autonomous lethal robotic weapons based on classical work of Joseph Weizenbaum, Helen Nissenbaum and others.

This chapter describes how the technologies of big data might apply to rural contexts. It considers the relative advantages and disadvantages of such ‘new’ innovations.

It uses two case studies, one of online community specialist groups linked to rural activities and a second from a policy shift relating to firearm legislation in the English context.

The chapter suggests that digital data in the forms discussed here can be both benign and underutilised in its potential. In relation to the management of datasets holding information on firearm owners, these need careful reflection regarding their establishment, access and general use.

The chapter provides insight into the rural context and makes a case that such locales are not immune from the influence of the dataverse. The appearance of ‘big data’ here is not without political implications. The case of UK firearm legislation reform demonstrates the implications of policy falling short of its potential and how a social science analysis can unpack the operation of power as well as position the debate more broadly.

This chapter explores the perfect storm brewing at the interface of an increasingly organized ethics review process, grounded in principles of anonymity and informed consent, and the formation of a new digital data landscape in which vast quantities of unregulated and often personal information are readily available as research data. This new form of data not only offers huge potential for insight into everyday activities, values, and networks but it also poses some profound challenges, not least as it disrupts the established principles and structures of the ethics review process. The chapter outlines four key disruptions posed by social media data and considers the value of situational ethics as a response. Drawing on the experiences and contributions of Ph.D. students in interdisciplinary Web Science, the chapter concludes that there is a need for more sharing of the ethical challenges faced in the field by those at the ‘cutting edge’ of social media research and the development of shared resources. This might inform and speed-up the adaptation of ethics review processes to the challenges posed by new forms of digital data, to ensure that academic research with these data can keep pace with the methods and analyses being developed elsewhere, especially in commercial and journalistic contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new collaboration between the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) and the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society (JICES).

The paper uses historical, comparative and ethics-based approaches.

The collaboration is catalyzed by central interests shared between AoIR and JICES, namely, in the ethical and social impacts of the internet. The collaboration accordingly aims to bring research and reflection developed for the AoIR conferences to the JICES’ readership.

The value of this collaboration is considerable, as it promises extensive new cross-fertilization between the two communities. The viewpoint begins with a brief overview of the collaboration’s initiation by Prof Simon Rogerson and its logistics over the next two years. Following a general review of Information and Computing Ethics and Intercultural Information Ethics, an overview of ethical considerations fostered by AoIR is offered, focusing on the development of internet research ethics (IRE), especially its most recent expression in an IRE 3.0.

Purpose – For decades, archivists have been appraising, preserving, and providing access to digital records by using archival theories and methods developed for paper records. However, production and consumption of digital records are informed by social and industrial trends and by computer and data methods that show little or no connection to archival methods. The purpose of this chapter is to reexamine the theories and methods that dominate records practices. The authors believe that this situation calls for a formal articulation of a new transdiscipline, which they call computational archival science (CAS).

Design/Methodology/Approach – After making a case for CAS, the authors present motivating case studies: (1) evolutionary prototyping and computational linguistics; (2) graph analytics, digital humanities, and archival representation; (3) computational finding aids; (4) digital curation; (5) public engagement with (archival) content; (6) authenticity; (7) confluences between archival theory and computational methods: cyberinfrastructure and the records continuum; and (8) spatial and temporal analytics.

Findings – Each case study includes suggestions for incorporating CAS into Master of Library Science (MLS) education in order to better address the needs of today’s MLS graduates looking to employ “traditional” archival principles in conjunction with computational methods. A CAS agenda will require transdisciplinary iSchools and extensive hands-on experience working with cyberinfrastructure to implement archival functions.

Originality/Value – We expect that archival practice will benefit from the development of new tools and techniques that support records and archives professionals in managing and preserving records at scale and that, conversely, computational science will benefit from the consideration and application of archival principles.

This paper aims to propose a theoretical arrangement for the study of applied computer and information ethics carried out in an interdisciplinary and a democratic manner by which the information and communications technologies are seen as an ethical environment, and human-computer couplings are seen as hybrid moral agents.

New ethical issues emerge dynamically in such environment which must be interpreted according to human sentience and computer ontology. To attribute moral meaning to acts perpetrated by human-computer hybrids, a hybrid of two semiotics must be likely used that bridge the gap between signs and things from opposite directions.

The author argues that ecosocial dynamics and material semiotics can be harnessed together as in a theoretical mashup for that purpose, and that such harnessing will allow us to engage with a posthumanist/post-social ethics here and now.

The originality of the proposal resides in bringing hybridity to the center of the picture, forcing interdisciplinary teams to engage with one unified, even if hybrid, agency regardless of conflicting ontologies and epistemologies.