U of I to develop national center for ethics in science, mathematics and engineering

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a national center and portal for professional and research ethics in science, mathematics and engineering.

As part of the Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) at Illinois, the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics will develop, gather, preserve and provide comprehensive access to resources related to ethics for teachers, students, researchers, administrators and other audiences.

“Almost everybody wakes up every day and wants to do the right thing,” said Center Director C. K. Gunsalus, CSL research professor and professor of business. “Many people who face ethical dilemmas know the general principles but not necessarily how to apply them in the complexity that real-life professional and research practice present. The Center seeks to create an online environment that encourages the life-long development of ethical practices through materials and interaction with other professionals.”

The online center will draw upon the University’s collective strengths in engineering, digital library technologies, mathematics, medicine, business and law, among other fields, it will provide information and expertise for instructors who teach ethics, students with questions about research integrity, researchers and engineers who encounter ethical challenges in practice, administrators in universities and businesses who oversee ethics and compliance policies, scholars who conduct research on professional and research ethics, and others with questions or interests in these areas.

Co-principal investigators include Taft Broome, Howard University (civil engineering); Nicholas Burbules, University of Illinois (education); Michael Loui, University of Illinois, (CSL, electrical and computer engineering, and education); and William Mischo, University of Illinois (University Library).

A multidisciplinary research team will gather existing information, generate new innovative curricular materials and create interactive collaboration tools that will help scientists and engineers incorporate ethical issues and reasoning into their pedagogy, research and practice. The grant also funds several other partner institutions and organizations around the country who will contribute content and expertise to the project. These partner institutions include the National Academy of Engineering and the Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research organization.

“A key focus of this grant is to explore the merging of several important digital library technologies. It is our hope that this work will serve as a model for all other online resource centers,” says Mischo, head of Illinois’ Grainger Engineering Library Information Center.

In addition, experts from the University and across the country will advise the center through its Education, Ethics, Futures, Steering and Technical Committees.

The portal infrastructure will be physically located in the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center at Illinois and will be built around the HUBZero e-learning and collaboration platform. The grant work will feature the development of HUBZero extensions that will allow the integration of custom federated search applications, extended content harvesting and database technologies and true preservation and archiving repository technologies. Under earlier grant support, the Library has developed and deployed a suite of federated search tools and user interface, archiving and database technologies.

The center will also leverage existing NSF investments in ethics education. At the end of the grant, the University Library will incorporate the Center’s resources into its permanent collection.
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Writer/Contact: Kim Gudeman, Coordinated Science Laboratory, 217/493-1618.

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, Engineering Communications Office, 217/244-7716, editor.