The Website: addresses the need for an easily accessible central source of information for the general public's concerns and issues surrounding virtual technologies' impact on society's values, including examples, perspectives, and solutions, where available, from many corners. The content reflects views from diverse perspectives and disciplines grappling with ongoing judgements being made in the development and use of computer-based representations or simulations. Web site: http://www.accad.ohio-state.edu/Astrolabe/
The CD-ROM: is geared towards undergraduate classroom use in a variety of disciplines, and provides instructors and students with a well organized and helpful starting point for investigations on how virtual technologies may impact ethical judgements in their discipline.
The Online Journal: is directed towards practitioners and theorists in relevant fields in academia, industry, and government and synthesizes the many interrelated ethical issues surrounding the virtual nature of these technologies.
There is an increased public interest in the impact of innovative computer-based information and communication technologies on contemporary society. Even as the products of these technological labor have been embraced, there have been calls for controls and a more thorough understanding of the implications of these technologies' impacts on society values.
Virtual information and communication technologies, in particular, have raised numerous questions about the negative aspects accompanying positive contributions to the accessibility of information and ease of communication. Current virtual interactive technology relies heavily on representations or simulations of information (i.e., two dimensional images, three-dimensional animations, virtual environments on the WWW, including sound and video).
Decisions about what is right or wrong are inextricably linked to a grasp of what is real and what is true. Current virtual technology, through its representations of simulations of reality, offers us countless means to reevaluate our perceptions of what reality and truth consist. This project, questioning the ethics and values issues involved in the development and use of these virtual technologies, will use those same virtual technologies of representation and simulation which it questions.
The general public, using the World Wide Web, which according to the Emerging Technologies Users Groups 1997 Internet User Survey currently totals 31.3 million adults. This site will include many interactive features, encouraging an ongoing dialogue concerning the questions posed by this project.
Undergraduate students, in various disciplines will find in the near future that these technologies are "indispensable". The CD ROM medium will allow ACCAD to distribute free copies of the disc to targeted instructors across the state, so that this topic could easily be included in their course. This will provide instructors and students with a well organized and helpful starting point for individual investigations in their discipline. The CD will also include easy access to the website.
Practitioners and theorists, involved in the research and development of these technologies, both in academia and industry, and government will be offered a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary outlet for accessing and/or publishing research concerning issues around ethics and virtual technologies. Using the Web to publish journals, once articles have been submitted and reviewed, will insure more rapid access to ideas and solutions surrounding these concerns.