International Journal of Education and Development using ICT

International Journal of Education and Development using ICT > Vol. 2, No. 1 (2006)

Investigating ethical crimes

Edward J.S. Morris, RMIT University, Australia
Catherine P Zuluaga, RMIT University, Australia

Abstract
To improve final year I.T. undergraduate students’ ability to analyse ethical issues we devised a 5-step procedure, based on a standard investigative procedure used at crime scenes. The appeal to our students lies in associating the investigation of an ethical issue with the investigation of a crime, as portrayed in popular TV crime shows that add modern forensic science to traditional ‘whodunnit’ mysteries. We evaluated the success of our ethical ‘crime’ investigation procedure by comparison with previous student cohorts given the same issues to analyse. To leverage the strengths of our new approach, we scripted an ethical crime scenario for video production. The video depicts events surrounding a petty theft in a busy open plan office. First students investigate the crime, then the underlying ethical issues. To help online students learn to investigate ethical issues, we used our previously reported object oriented learning methodology (OOL) to design a class of learning objects, or learning object class (LOC). Class Investigator uses our ethical crime investigation procedure and example video. This LOC facilitates dynamic instantiation of an individualised learning object (LO) for, or by, a student during a lesson. This enables a LO lesson to not only be more highly interactive but also far less predetermined in its sequence of activities for each student.

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