This project has short-term and long-term goals. In the short term, the Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society (CEES) at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) will modify and provide site enhancements to the NAE CEES Online Ethics Center (OEC), found at www.onlineethics.org. These enhanced features will help principal investigators and institutions respond knowledgeably to NSF requirements for ethics education instituted as part of the America COMPETES Act of 2007. In the long term, the project will improve the ability of the OEC to serve Academy members and others who wish to enhance excellence in research and research ethics, and to build trustworthy research communities responsive to democratic concerns. The OEC Advisory Group and its members will help to develop, test, modify, and evaluate OEC site enhancements, and to host activities to gather information about the utility of the site for the research communities for whom assistance should be provided. In addition, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (CSEP) librarian at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) will develop and conduct user needs assessments of administrators and faculty at IIT and other nearby institutions. CSEP will use the results to inform the identification and development of materials, and the design of interfaces and databases for the CSEP home page as well as the OEC. The Usability Testing and Evaluation Center at IIT will assess the sites at the end of the project. These procedures allow for a degree of independent evaluation of the utility of these sites. The field of Science and Technology Studies has expertise in evaluating process and results in digital resource development, and a project consultant will be used for this purpose also. Results will include research findings, pedagogical materials, and promising practices in education for the ethical and responsible conduct of research in science and engineering and for development of trustworthy research in democratic societies. These results will be available to a National digital library that NSF intends to support.
Results from this project will make good practices and materials widely available and accessible and help the development of a broad-based, knowledgeable social network in ethics education in science and engineering. Special attention will be paid to resources by and for populations that are underrepresented in science and engineering, and to issues that arise for them and from the increasingly globalized and interdisciplinary nature of research. Publicity about the project will be disseminated broadly, through National Academies? press releases, websites, and publications, and at relevant meetings of professional societies and academic organizations, including those of special relevance to underrepresented populations.
