responsibility
This essay reconsiders the definition of the word 'responsibility' in the phrase 'responsibilty in ICT research' by taking a closer look at a specific branch in the humanities: textual scholarship. This branch can profit extremely well from the collaboration between humanities research and ICT development. The diversity of knowledge present in the ICT-sector is indispensable for the creation of digital editions that are both scholarly responsible as well as interesting for a large public.
Emerging information and communications technologies enable individuals and communities to collect and share granular, accurate, and sometimes personal data about their lives and environments, raising numerous challenges for socially responsible innovation. To encourage socially responsible data collection, ICT designers must incorporate discussions of ethics, values, and social responsibilities into their design process.
This project is a case study about involving the subjects of research at the earliest stages of the research process, from the initial proposal and ethics approval. The investigation involved carrying out and analyzing 10 interviews, 7 with researchers and 3 with their subjects, in this case teaching fellows engaged in pedagogic research and their students respectively. The implications of a greater involvement from students into this kind of research on the students who get involved, as subjects, and the individuals proposing the research is explored.
Even if a technology is developed, it may not become accepted. Society may question the moral authority of a machine developed with artificial intelligence, for example. Just like in normal human social life it needs to be established on what authority a machine makes its judgments. And consequently, respecting their autonomy, this authority should be accepted by those subjected to the actions of that machine (Whitby, 2008). Responsibility also is intimately bound up with moral judgment. As a system makes choices, consequences are produced which affect people.
