Ethical competence and confidence for IT users and designers

Ethical issues are very important in our changing, open and global world. IT, which is the motor and channel of the new fast moving world, develops and changes more rapidly itself. The IT world of today implies a series of new unanticipated ethical challenges and, given the high pace IT changes itself and the world, it is impossible to foresee important ethical problems and conflicts, and therefore it is very difficult to construct ethical guidelines with any practical value. Under such conditions it is necessary for individual users and designers of IT, as well as for groups and organisations, to acquire high ethical competence and confidence in handling all the possible ethical problems that may arise in everyday real life professional activities. IT users and designers need: 1. high ethical awareness, 2. adaptive ethical problem-solving and decision-making abilities at individual and group level, and 3. effective ethical argumentation skills. Development of assessment methods, as well as construction and implementation of trainin