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Re: Ethics

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From: David R. Stong
Date: May 10, 2002 10:38AM

I though that the five week WebAIM course was excellent. I didn't
miss the discussion of ethics at all.

"Ethics" are subjective. When I present the idea of Web
accessibility, I don't need to be embroiled in a discussion of moral
duty and obligation that could easily side track the issue at hand.
Someone easily approachable may become radically opposed to the idea
because of my concept of the ethics of the issue. Yes, there are
ethical issues. Yes they are interesting to discuss. But I don't feel
that an argument based on the moral and ethical obligation of
accessibility work will do one thing to promote the concept to people
that aren't seeing it.


>Dear All.
>
>I was disappointed in the otherwise excellent WebAIM course run last month,
>to find what I thought was a generally light or soft approach to ethics (eg
>in the week 2 discussion - for those of you who participated). Let me
>declare my biases at the outset. I am a founding and executive member of the
>Australian Institute of Computer Ethics. I am an advocate of ethical
>responsibility for IT professionals.
>
>Being relatively new to things accessible I was very pleased to see that the
>WebAIM course did more than just give lip service to ethical issues.
>However, other than using the word 'ethics' repeatedly, and making comments
>that it is hard to read anything on accessibility without coming across the
>term 'ethics', very little specific or deep discussion followed.
>
>Sure there were concerns for general social responsibility toward the
>disadvantaged in the community. There were concerns (quite well expressed in
>an article referenced in that discussion) about the digital divide. There
>were general concerns for the needs of the aging population. There were
>equity concerns. Yet little in the way of specifics/depth.
>
>I invite you either to this list or to me personally (and at some future
>point I will summarise the discussion to this list), to share what to you
>are the ethical issues. Perhaps together we can explore the issues in a bit
>more depth?
>
>I look forward to your replies,
>
>Oliver
>
>------------------------------------------------
>Oliver Burmeister
>Lecturer
>Swinburne Computer-Human Interaction Laboratory
>School of Information Technology
>Swinburne University of Technology
>PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122
>Australia
>(T) +61 3 9214 8304
>(F) +61 3 9214 5501
>email: mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>URL: http://www.it.swin.edu.au/schil/biographies/oliverburmeister.html
>SCHIL URL: http://www.it.swin.edu.au/centres/schil/
>
>
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>visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/


--
David R. Stong, Graphic Designer
225 Computer Building, University Park PA
Working for Universal Design:
http://cac.psu.edu/training/outlines/accessibility


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