Information ethics matter. As we begin a new academic term, I have noticed that our information world continues to function in incredible and reassuring ways. I've benefitted from digital scholarly, financial, social, legal, and medical information at professional levels that are not accessible through free, casual internet searching. I've also enjoyed hours of reading, watching, and listening via free or almost free websites many of us have. But I also 1.) encounter egregious examples of misinformation; 2.) continue to see that not all people have ready access to information they need; and 3.) see evidence that my information is not secure or private. Hence, I suggest our society pay more attention to information ethics. 

It is our responsibility in the School of Information Sciences to step back and continually analyze information environments through our research, personal assessments, and ongoing engagement with systems, both traditional and emerging. And likewise, it is part of our charge to arm students with tools and attitudes to ensure that they maintain critical perspectives on all kinds of media, users, institutions, and the general information environments in which they navigate. As we emerge from a year stained with misinformation about politics, the pandemic, medicine, race, gender, among other topics, ethics will and should rise in our collective awareness as it applies to information.  

Information ethics is not a new field. It informs national/international policy and addresses social and technical issues that touch us as individuals and members of families, institutions, political/governmental entities, and countries. Information ethics is a branch of ethics that addresses everything that happens with information, from its creation, to the ways it is organized, communicated, stored, preserved, manipulated, destroyed, and censored. In practice, a comprehensive understanding of information ethics can help us all confront disparities of equity of access to information due to racial and other kinds of systemic discrimination, maximize information security, privacy, and accuracy, and minimize the dangers of information terrorism and warfare. That is a tall order and only part of what SIS faculty are working on in their research and with our students. If you haven't already done so, please do increase your awareness of the ways in which the subfield of information ethics impacts our lives and, if you cross paths with our faculty, staff, or students, please bring up situations positive or negative that illustrate how information ethics has had an impact on your work or life. 

As immersed as we are in these kinds of topics, members of our community have been engaged in many other aspects of teaching, research, and administration, which we attempt to communicate in our e-newsletter, on our website and on social media. We are optimistic and excited about the directions our new and existing students create for themselves and we cannot be more gratified to be a part of it. Please enjoy reading about the accomplishments of students, alumni and faculty in the most recent issue of the Connections e-newsletter. And please do reach out to them or me with comments or other reactions. I can be reached by email at tom.walker@wayne.edu.  

- Tom Walker
Associate Dean and Professor, School of Information Sciences