Information Ethics and Policy

Student Learning Outcomes, Goals, Objectives:

Students successfully completing this course will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of major policy issues important to the information, communication, and technology professions and to the public at large regarding government information, private sector information, secrecy, censorship, scholarly communication, intellectual property, security, and information equity.
• Describe the relationships among access rights, property rights, and privacy rights and responsibilities in an information society.
• Critically analyze policy issues to establish implications for policy development and maintenance.
• Develop an organizational data policy document.
• Describe the major ethical issues relevant to the provision of information.
• Describe and analyze policy and ethical issues effectively in writing.

Course Grading Information:

Activity/Performance Measure	Percentage/Points
Socratic Questions	25%
Learning Log (weekly)	15%
Notes	5%
Critical Book Review (Policy and Information)	5%
Ethics of Privacy Essay	5%
Critical Book Review (Surveillance Capitalism)	5%
White Paper	25%
Reflective Essay	10%

Grading Scale

Percentage	Letter Grade
93-100%	A
90-92%	A-
87-89%	B+
83-86%	B
80-82%	B-
77-79%	C+
73-76%	C
70-72%	C-
60-69%	D
< 60%	F

Attendance/Participation:

Attendance is important as Socratic Questions are asked approximately every 1.5 classes at random by the professor based on the readings per the course schedule.

Course Materials Purchased by the Students:

• Ahrens, S. (2021) How to take Smart Notes: One simple technique to boost writing, learning and thinking – for students, academics and nonfiction book writers. ISBN: 9781542866507
• Cappello, L. (2025). On Privacy: Twenty Lessons to Live By. Workman Publishing Company.
• Currier, K. (2026). Ethics, Information, and Technology. Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited.
• Doctorow, C. (2020). How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism. Medium Editions.
• Jaeger, P. T., Taylor, N. G., Inouye, A. S., & Kranich, N. C. (2019). Foundations of information policy. ALA Neal-Schuman. ISBN: 9780838918029
• Pahlka, J. (2023). Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better. Metropolitan Books.
• Zuboff, S. (2020). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs.
• The Constitution of the United States of America