Conference Agenda

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to present the main ethical challenges of information literacy as an ethical experience based on analyses of selected theoretical concepts of information literacy, information experience and on the results of a Delphi study focused on information ethics. The main research question is articulated as follows: Which ethical components can be decisive for developing the concept of ethical information literacy as a human experience?

Methodology and Related Research

Selected models of ethical issues of information literacy have been analysed, including moral literacy (Tuana, 2007), ethical strands of ANCIL (Secker and Coonan, 2013), metaliteracy (Mackey and Jacobson, 2019) and others. The background is related to qualitative innovative studies of information as experience (Bruce et al., 2014, Lloyd, 2021) and to the concepts of information ethics (Floridi, 2013), context (Agarwal, 2020) and value-sensitive design (Friedman and Hendry, 2019). A Delphi study focused on information ethics in digital environment was undertaken in 2021-2022 with selected experts from the Czech Republic and Slovakia (19 experts: 1st round, 6 experts: an online discussion: 2nd round). The disciplines included information science, computer science, media sciences, psychology, political science, management, or social informatics. The data was analysed using the content analyses, discourse analysis and conceptual modelling.

Findings

Findings of the Delphi study are visualized in three conceptual models representing the ethical challenges of information literacy. A final model is interpreted as an ethical information literacy experience in the academic context. The ethical components include social rules, epistemic and social values of information, and intercultural differences. Results confirmed the interconnected strata of the ethical information literacy experience based on social rules, personal characteristics, value tensions (ICT bias and social contexts), education and values of utility and truth.

Conclusions

We recommend including ethical components based on the findings of the Delphi study into innovative frameworks of academic information literacy, namely personal experience in ethically informed information use and production, social and intercultural rules, value tensions and epistemic and social values of information, (e.g. the utility and truth). The proposed model and recommendations can be used for further qualitative research of ethical information literacy experience, value-sensitive design of digital services and information literacy courses. We stress moral imagination, affective background, metaliteracy, metacognitive and participatory factors, context and accountability. Information literacy needs further conceptual development based on related experiential ethical dimensions.

References

Agarwal, N. K. (2022). Exploring context in information behavior. Seeker, situation, surroundings, and shared identities. Cham: Springer Nature.

Bruce, C., Davis, K., Hughes, H., Partridge, H., and Stoodley, I. (Eds.) (2014). Information experience: Approaches to theory and practice. Bingley: Emerald.

Floridi, L. (2013). The ethics of information. Oxford: University Press.

Friedman, B., and Hendry, D. G. (2019). Value sensitive design. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Lloyd D. A., (2021). The qualitative landscape of information literacy research. Perspectives, methods and techniques. London: Facet.

Mackey, T. P., and Jacobson, T. R. (2019). Metaliterate learning for the post-truth world. Chicago: ALA.

Secker, J., and Coonan, E. (2013). Rethinking information literacy: A practical framework for supporting learning. London: Facet.

Tuana, N. (2007). Conceptualizing moral literacy. Journal of Educational Administration, 45(4), 364–378.

In this article I provided a framework for the discussion of ethical repercussions of concepts and technologies created or used in information sciences upon animal life. The information super highway (the internet) made the dissemination of “content” on all possible topics easily accessible. These new “informational liberties” opened the way for various interdisciplinary research avenues between fields of interest we might never had considered compatible in the past. One of these discursive possibilities presents itself within the analysis of information sciences and its link to animal life. This link extends to broader ecological issues that arise from the application of technologies created or used in information sciences.

As a starting point, I presented possible issues that arise for information professionals, specifically while dealing with preservation, organization, and dissemination of information. Traditionally, information professionals deal with print material. Contemporary society’s needs demand new approaches in view of the fact that electronic, visual, audio, and other digital media dictate a different mode of data storage than conventional libraries. Animal welfare is conditioned by human impact in the biosphere. In this concrete example I talked about the data and information infrastructure. Taking data storage facilities as the first example, I discussed how the overheating issue and carbon emissions of these facilities change the biodiversity of the surrounding areas. For example, while the cooler fans are struggling to keep the various machines from overheating they have a secondary pollutant: constant noise. These examples served as an introduction to the discussion of other possible negative effects that practices in information sciences have on animals.

As these examples opened up the debate, I moved from the idea of green libraries (Aulisio, 2013) to possible issues with the most self-reflective part of information sciences: information literacy. I analyzed current research on green information literacy (Kurbanoğlu & Boustany, 2014) to address the key question: What is the status of moral reflection in green information literacy conceptualizations? I used the ethical framework of contemporary bioethics to access the issue. While bioethics are a developing field with various definitions and approaches to problem resolution, they are also most compatible with interdisciplinary research. Thus, bioethics had a greater potential than particular ethical positions such as consequentialism, different narrative ethics, contractualist or other approaches. The main question in this debate was whetherthe critical capacity of information literacy included value judgments, especially morally sound judgments. In other words, I explored whether the normative dimension of contemporary information literacy definitions and models included moral reflection of the impact their procedures and products had upon animal life.

References

Aulisio, G. J. (2013). Green libraries are more than just buildings. Electronic green journal, 1(35).

Kurbanoğlu, S., & Boustany, J. (2014). From green libraries to green information literacy. In S. Kurbanoğlu et al. (Eds.), Information Literacy, Lifelong Learning and Digital Citizenship in the 21st Century, Second European Conference on Information Literacy, ECIL 2014, Dubrovnik, Croatia, October 20–23, 2014: Proceedings. Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) 492 (pp. 47–58). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Since the availability of the chatbot ChatGPT in 2022, there has been a heated discussion, especially in didactics and media education science, about what conclusions should be drawn (Baidoo-Anu & Owusu Ansah, 2023) from letting students complete tasks through the chatbot. In this paper, we will turn this idea ethically. Namely, not only the writer’s truthfulness but also the source’s truthfulness and accuracy is an information ethical requirement. Therefore, there is a claim on the author to account for the sources’ quality. However, the realization of this claim is bound to an explicit competence, in this case, information literacy. When using autonomous writing engines, however, this competence is shared: The user of this machines usually does not apply his information literacy but leaves the source responsibility to the AI. This delegation of information literacy can only succeed when the machine can possess information literacy itself. This has information ethical consequences for the use and for the development of such technology: autonomous writing machines must be information literate to meaningfully and efficiently find information that it has been trained to use, for example, from the Internet, according to a given task or question, and then combine it according to the given task or question.

Let us imagine that such machines like ChatGPT will be increased or even widely used in the future. Applications creating research reports or journalistic reports are already a reality today (Pavlik, 2023). In the future, machines will independently search for information online to process multiple queries. It is important to remember that not only correct and up-to-date information can be found on the web, but also intentionally or accidentally incorrect, tendentious, or falsified sources are also widely available. It is part of successful information literacy to constantly check the sources for their truthfulness and reliability. If the old phrase “one bad apple spoils the whole barrel” is true, then the ability to distinguish good apples from bad is an information core competency. After all, if the increasingly used autonomous machines take over rotten apples and incorporate them into their texts, not only will these texts become rotten and wrong, but the net itself will become infested with this rot since, because of increasing digitization, machine texts will be increasingly present.

This paper discusses what information ethical requirements must be placed on design, programming, and use of autonomous writing machines so that they themselves can actively seek out and avoid the rotten apples. It is not about technology but more fundamentally about explicitly normative demands on the development and use of autonomous writing machines.

References

Baidoo-Anu, D., & Owusu Ansah, L. (2023). Education in the era of generative artificial intelligence (AI): Understanding the potential benefits of ChatGPT in promoting teaching and learning. Retrieved February 14, 2023 from https://ssrn.com/abstract=4337484

Pavlik, J. V. (2023). Collaborating with ChatGPT: Considering the implications of generative artificial intelligence for journalism and media education. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator,78(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/10776958221149577