PrintQuick Facts
- Instructor: David DiBiase
- Course Structure: Online, 10-12 hours a week for 10 weeks
Overview
Prepares current and aspiring professionals to recognize, analyze and address legal and ethical issues in the GIS&T (geospatial) field. GEOG 581 is for students who are concerned about the ethical implications and social impacts of geospatial technologies and methods. It traces the roots of Spatial Data Science Ethics in moral philosophy, professional ethics frameworks, and critical studies in the geospatial field. Students analyze non-trivial ethical case studies in which right and wrong actions are not clear-cut. They compare and critique relevant legal and policy issues in the U.S. and abroad. They evaluate the organizational ethics of firms and agencies (including current or potential employers) that provide spatial data science products and services, and they create and refine a proposed “ethics of digital care” for leading balanced digital lives. Finally, they develop a research Term Project to conceptualize and interrogate ethical issues related to their own research work. Course activities include readings, case study analyses, bi-weekly presentations, class discussions, and scholarly Term Project written reports.
Learn more about GEOG 581, Spatial Data Science Ethics (2 min, 40 sec)
Hi. This is David DiBiase. I'm here with my dog Teo. We're at the White Water Preserve out near Palm Springs California. We're here to take a little walk today and thought it would be a good place and a good occasion to talk to you a little bit about Geography 581, Spatial Data Science Ethics. So, let's go for a walk. The first question you may have is why take a class in spatial data science ethics when there are so many other cool technical courses you could take instead? Well, one reason is that spatial data science ethics is really interesting and really important. Another reason is that employers want to retain good employees and maintaining an ethical culture at work is one of the best ways to do that. And a third reason is you probably want to be the kind of person that your fellow workers come to when they have problems, who trust you to have good judgment, to have moral reasoning skills, and this class aims to help you achieve that.
So, the course begins with the consideration of research ethics and you'll take a training, an online training, that's required by the Graduate School for you to do research. After we take care of the research ethics requirement we dive a little bit into moral theory, just a little bit, and also at the same time we look into the nature of professionalism, in particular, how professions can be defined by their particular ethical codes. In the third part of the course, we're going to focus on geospatial ethics. That's kind of my comfort zone. I've been teaching GIS ethics and writing about the subject for quite a few years. We're going to look at some very interesting ethical case studies in the GIS realm and we're going to build up our moral reasoning skills by analyzing those cases methodically. In part four we'll look into data science and the ethical challenges that arise in that field. And there are some interesting challenges, believe me, you've probably heard of them, having to do with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and privacy of course. It'll all come together with readings and scenarios in spatial data science ethics. That's new territory for everybody. And it's going to be a lot of fun for all of us to explore it together!
Want to join us? Students who register for this Penn State course gain access to assignments and instructor feedback and earn academic credit. For more information, visit Penn State's Online Geospatial Education Program website. Official course descriptions and curricular details can be reviewed in the University Bulletin.