Kelly Laas

Illinois Institute of Technology | IIT · Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions

In this article, we present the results of 30 ethnographic interviews in which we asked STEM graduate and undergraduate students at a university in the Midwest of the United States about topics related to the culture of their research group, how group members communicate and interact, and their experience with ethical issues that arise within the l...

In this collected volume, we are interested in the roles of ethics codes and ethical guidelines in professions in which research and innovation play an important role and where emerging technologies bring about considerable, sometimes fast-paced change.

This article discusses the role of informed consent, a well-known concept and standard established in the field of medicine, in ethics codes relating to digital data management. It analyzes the significance allotted to informed consent and informed consent-related principles in ethics codes, policies, and guidelines by presenting the results of a s...

Ethics codes and ethical guidelines are an established way of installing standards in professions, science, technology, and business. They help institutions and organizations address emerging issues, regulate practice-specific contexts, provide support, and are seen as helpful resources for professional-specific teaching. When it comes to the broad...

In recent years, numerous organizations worldwide have produced normative documents identifying potential benefits, harms, and associated recommendations related to artificial intelligence (AI). This chapter examines why these AI ethics documents are being produced and what they can tell us about the motivations, practices, and policies that surrou...

This book investigates how ethics generally precedes legal regulation, and looks at how changes in codes of ethics represent an unparalleled window into the research, innovation, and emerging technologies they seek to regulate. It provides case studies from the fields of engineering, science, medicine and social science showing how professional cod...

In this article, we summarize the key findings of an exploratory study in which students and faculty completed a survey that sought to identify the most important ethical issues in STEM fields, how often these issues are discussed in research groups, and how often these ethical issues come up in the daily practice of research. Participants answered...

In recent years, numerous public, private, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have produced documents addressing the ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI). These normative documents include principles, frameworks, and policy strategies that articulate the ethical concerns, priorities, and associated strategies of leading organ...

In recent years, numerous public, private, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have produced documents addressing the ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI). These normative documents include principles, frameworks, and policy strategies that articulate the ethical concerns, priorities, and associated strategies of leading organ...

In recent years, numerous public, private, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have produced documents addressing the ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI). These normative documents include principles, frameworks, and policy strategies that articulate the ethical concerns, priorities, and associated strategies of leading organ...

This article describes a National Science Foundation-funded project that engages graduate students in the active development of context-specific codes-of-ethics based guidelines for use in their research group. By actively engaging students in ethics discussions specific to their everyday practice, this approach has the benefit of situating ethics...

Since 2016, more than 80 AI ethics documents-including codes, principles, frameworks, and policy strategies-have been produced by corporations, governments, and NGOs. In this paper, we examine three topics of importance related to our ongoing empirical study of ethics and policy issues in these emerging documents. First, we review possible challeng...

Since 2016, more than 80 AI ethics documents – including codes, principles, frameworks, and policy strategies – have been produced by corporations, governments, and NGOs. In this paper, we examine three topics of importance related to our ongoing empirical study of ethics and policy issues in these emerging documents. First, we review possible chal...

In this article, we present an educational intervention that embeds ethics education within research laboratories. This structure is designed to assist students in addressing ethical challenges in a more informed way, and to improve the overall ethical culture of research environments. The project seeks (a) to identify factors that students and res...

In our project, “Building a Culture of Responsible Research and Practice in STEM ” we are engaging graduate students in the active development of context-specific codes-of-ethics based guidelines. During the 2017-2018 academic year, the project worked with four groups of graduate students from the Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Biolo...

After twenty-five years of integrating ethics across the curriculum at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions conducted a survey of full-time faculty to investigate: a) what ethical topics faculty thought students from their discipline should be aware of when they graduate, b) how widely et...

In this paper, we hypothesize that the development of normative materials dealing with nanotechnology from 2004-2008 can be used to indicate the level of action being taken worldwide towards the responsible development of nanotechnologies. We also look at these indications of action in light of the number of reports, articles, and general agitation...

Our subject is how the experience of Americans with a certain funding criterion, "broader impacts" (and some similar criteria) may help in efforts to turn the European concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) into a useful guide to funding Europe's scientific and technical research. We believe this comparison may also be as enlightening...

Since the spring of 2010, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions has been developing a series of ethics modules for the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Interprofessional Projects Program (IPRO). In the IPRO program, students from all the major disciplines taught at IIT, including engineering, business, architecture, psychology,...

Kelly Laas, Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology Kelly Laas is the Librarian/Information Researcher at the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (CSEP) at the Illinois Institute of Technology. During her four years at the Center, she has supervised a number of projects relating to the devel...

After the Bhopal disaster of 1984, key members of the chemical industry went on to join the International Council of Chemical Associations, a network of industry associations who work together to continuously improve their health, safety and environmental performance, and to communicate with stakeholders about their products and processes. Even wit...

The America COMPETES Act of 2008 has compelled scholars and institutions to think more deeply about meaningful ways to incorporate ethical reasoning into their pedagogy and research, as well as heightening the need to digitize and organize the thousands of articles, case studies, instruction modules and other works that have already been developed...

When looking at designing online resources for science and engineering ethics (SEE), developers should consider to what extent their web sites can fulfill the often-cited five goals set by the 1980 Hastings Center Working Group for teaching ethics in higher education. Online readings, case studies, discussion forums, and tutorials should help in...