These are great examples, Prof. Dr. Faust. From my own experience, I can surely agree that the act of bringing important issues to the surface such as ethics and intellectual property rights, and discussing these in the open, is much more valuable than having, and blindly trusting, a catalogue of rules and rights to live up to. It is simply not enough - being the case in both research and practice - every time you get a project in, to look up the answers in a catalogue, because every project (especially in times of exponential growth in technology) can have its own minor, or major differences and angles, so that 'old' rules don’t apply. Nonetheless, it is our job then, to make sure that 'new' ones do.
So, by 'taking our own medicine', we should embrace co-designing and having an open and fruitful dialogue about ethics in students' (and teachers', and any professional) forum, to both find the rules that apply (and how these apply) to this particular project as well as bring the importance of critically thinking about these aspects to the forefront.
This seems to be especially important in projects that can potentially have harmful consequences or/ and significant implications for people; everyday people who might not be aware and trust the designers and developers to have their best interest in mind.
This being said, it is indeed not an easy - but still, a very, very interesting and influential - job to be designing in these times!
Regards,
Svenja Jaffari
Innovation consultant, PhD in User-centred Design and Innovation
Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark, Odense, DK
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Mobile: +45 23245917
www.syddansksundhedsinnovation.dk ; https://www.innosouth.dk/
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Fra: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in <[log in to unmask]> På vegne af Prof. Dr. Juergen Faust
Sendt: 13. februar 2020 11:27
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Re: Ethics guidelines for soliciting/accepting "real-world" assignments for students?
Dear All,
this is an intersting thread and the topic is worthwhile to discuss.
We deal and I have dealed at different Universities with many projects with the industry and for sure, that there needs to be attention not to create competition to the design profession. But by the way the automotive industry gets an ongoing flow of new car models more or less for free. The transportation design programs are ligned up to serve indsutries without a formal committment. I always found that very questionable!
But a bigger point is the limited knowlede we do sometimes have regarding such projects. Regarding alcohol/spirits its obvious and easy to decide.
I did projects together with students where we did realized the challenge and complexity much later in the process and the ethical questions raised challenged our participation. For instance we worked with a green agriculture organization helping them to communicate and market their products and we did realize how fuzzy the studies have been, the greeniness has been based on wishes and believes.
But we did an interesting project in US, when I have been teaching there. We did an ethical boot camp with all projects we did get in (it was a requirement), discussing and researching ethical issues. The success was amazing, since students have been not handed over ethic gudielines, students had been able to elaborate on ethics and have been able to recognize the complexities and made decisions on that. The same approach we did with intellectual property issues, which we did call intellectually property clinic.
Prof. Dr Jurgen Faust
Macromedia University
Hi all,
I’m really grateful for all the replies, both on- and off-list. Thanks!
Just to clarify a point:
Of course there are many considerations to make when soliciting/accepting external projects in education settings. Some people have raised issues related to intellectual property, and to avoid unfair competition between student teams and freelancers. This is very true, but that’s not the point I’m trying to touch upon.
The “burning issue” I’m dealing with is: we had a potentially controversial large multinational pitching a project about a product that is quite frowned upon these days. Imagine it’s a multinational that makes vodka, and they pitched a speculative project about how to get people to stop drinking. (I will not name the potential client, It was not alcool-related in reality, but you get the gist)
I’m curious about how do different programs deal with situations like this.
I’ll certainly share the code of ethics we’ll create, when it will be ready (it will take time)
Cheers
G:
--
Gabriele Ferri, Ph.D.
Tenured researcher & lecturer // Play & Civic Media // M.Sc. Digital Design Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences www.gabrieleferri.com
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