Approaches and Models for Teaching Digital Ethics in Information Systems Courses – A Review of the Literature

Abstract

The value and importance of teaching Digital Ethics within Information Systems and ICT courses is widely recognized and stand-alone or integrated digital ethics units are broadly implemented across degree courses. However, how such courses should be taught and what content they should include is a little explored topic. Using a narrative literature review methodology, this paper reviews the pedagogical theories underpinning digital ethics courses discussed in the literature and outlines approaches that deploy standalone ethics units, integrated ethics teaching, and hybrid teaching approaches and the use of interdisciplinary models. The paper identifies the employment of, and emphasis given to various moral theories in digital ethics education. The paper then discusses how our findings relating to different pedagogical approaches, degree of integration of ethics teaching, the use of interdisciplinary models and use of moral theories—are related to each other. The discussion explores trends in approaches and models for teaching digital ethics highlighted in the review, and makes recommendations for further exploration and inquiry. It concludes that the effective teaching of digital ethics will likely involve a considered combination of approaches, models and techniques, which may also be tailored to the needs of different roles and industries.