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. I N F O ethics .
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Welcome to VF-INFOethics

VF-INFOethics is an open, world-wide discussion forum about information ethics. VF stands for virtual forum. Its main objective is to augment knowledge and public awareness in information ethics' topics and to provide UNESCO with recommendations for further actions in the field of information ethics.

The discussion is now closed.
A new discussion will start in September, when the conference forum for the second INFOethics conference is opened.

View the project report

Structure
The INFOethics forum is being carried out in two rounds. Round 1 started as of Oct 1997 and continued till the end of the year. The topics of the first round were set up after an intensive pilot phase, in which experts in the field provided much useful information. From that we formed three main classes of topics to be commented on:
  1. The concept of information ethics and the role of UNESCO
  2. Societal/political aspects of information ethics
    1. Information rich and information poor
    2. Information as a public and/or private good
  3. Ethical aspects of global information markets
    1. Trust, ownership, and validity of information
    2. Privacy, confidentiality, security, hate, violence in the Internet
Comments and results are available by clicking on the button "round 1".
The second round will be structured slightly differently. With respect to UNESCO's concern in INFOethics and the discussion in the first round four major classes of questions have been determined to be of most interest for the second round. We refer to these questions under the following headings:
  • privacy
  • information gap
  • science, education
  • information market/public role
In addition, there will be one open class for other topics which you may find important and an evaluation slot.
Please click on the button "round 2" for more information.
Timetable
The INFOethics forum was originally designed to last for about half a year. The results of the forum will be presented at the second (real) UNESCO conference, scheduled for Oct 98 in Monte Carlo.
The first round lasted from Oct 97 till the end of the year 1998. Click on the button "round 1" to have a look at the comments and results.

The second round is open for discussion as of Feb 20th 1998. Any of the 5 questions, and, of course, the incoming comments as well can continuously be commented on. At the end of March, summaries of the discussion will be provided taking into account the information from round 1, and room will be then given for "final" statements from all participants on the basis of these summaries. UNESCO will then be provided with recommendations for further actions.
At the end of round 2, in mid April 98, we will decide whether INFOethics should continue as an electronic floor for UNESCO-related discussion on INFOethics and in which form.

Maintenance
The central monitoring group of VF-INFOethics at the University of Constance (Department of Information Science) will provide additional information, for example references to pertinent literature on information ethics, to other web sites, to data bases, and to other discussion groups with a scope similar to VF-INFOethics.
VF-INFOethics will thus develop into an open forum, a platform, or a market place with numerous links to the world's knowledge in information ethics. Additional links can be provided by all members of VF-INFOethics.

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© 1997, 1998 by Informationswissenschaft, University of Constance, Germany
Email your questions to:
Organization: Rainer Kuhlen [email: Rainer.Kuhlen@inf-wiss.uni-konstanz.de]
Webmaster: Anja Odenthal [email: Anja.Odenthal@inf-wiss.uni-konstanz.de]