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Cursus: INFOMRICT
INFOMRICT
Responsible ICT
Cursus informatie
CursuscodeINFOMRICT
Studiepunten (EC)7,5
Cursusdoelen

The intended learning objectives (ILOs) are:

  • ILO1: Make argumentations on the interrelation between Ethics and ICT and get familiar with methods for systematic elicitation and mitigation of ethical conflicts
  • ILO2: Reflect on how ICT influences and is influenced by values at the individual, professional, organizational, economic, and societal levels
  • ILO3: Analyze human values using the Q-Sort method, in the context of Responsible ICT
  • ILO4: Analyze life-cycle, enabling and structural impacts of ICT and the social, economic and environmental trade-offs among them
  • ILO5: Analyze papers and projects by positioning them within the landscape of Responsible ICT and assessing their sustainability maturity
  • ILO6: Conduct research on Responsible ICT themes, as well as write and review papers or book chapters that report on the results

Assessment
We enumerate the course components and their weight towards the final grade: ​​​

  • Final exam, 30%
  • Chapter project, 40%
  • Workshop assignments, 20%
  • Individual performance, 10%
This year (2021-2022)  there are 5 workshop assignments, each counting 20% towards the workshop assignments grade.
The chapter project is a team project consisting of authoring a chapter abstract (20%), writing a complete chapter (40%), creating and presenting a knowledge clip related to the chapter (10%) and revising the chapter (30%).
Individual performance is assessed based on active participation in writing the chapter (40%), quality of peer reviews delivered (20%), active participation in other course activities (40%).
The final exam is supported with Remindo.

A repair test requires at least a 4 for the original test.
Inhoud

The course has the following core content:

  • Fundamentals of ethics
  • Domain ethics within ICT
  • Professional codes of of conduct
  • Organizational ethics
  • Values at the economic level
  • Values at the societal level
  • The environmental dimension
  • ICT-related problems at the macro level
  • Ethical reasoning methods
  • Square of values
  • Value-sensitive design
  • Software sustainability assessment
  • Organizational responsibility improvement cycle
  • Materiality assessment
  • Impact measurement for organizations
  • Improvement planning

Every academic course, we have the chance to cover other themes related to Responsible ICT, depending on the opportunities to organize complementary lectures, guest talks and extra educational activities.
Examples are fair trade software, explainable and responsible artificial intelligence, responsible decision making, ICT cooperatives, de-growth and ICT, ICT for development.

Technically, the course adopts a model-based approach. As a result, many of the Responsible ICT theories and skills are based on or supported by models.
For instance, a model of universal human values coming from experimental psychology underpins a great part of the course content.
Also, several ethical reasoning methods covered in the course are based on models (e.g. the Square of Values, the Software Sustainability Assessment method).
Moreover, we include training and workshop assignments related to model-driven software engineering practices in the context of Responsible ICT; in particular, we rely on meta-modelling and on textual grammar engineering with Eclipse Xtext.
Throughout the upcoming course editions, we plan to reinforce the model-based approach and extend the course with more assignments and exercises on model-driven skills and technologies.

Course form
Despite having a core content, this course is a research-oriented seminar. It consists of lectures, workshops, student presentations, and a paper or book chapter project.
The students are expected to participate actively during the course.

Study material
Presentations, scientific papers, book chapters, knowledge clips.
 

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