Work in Progress – Using a Collaborative Content Management System for Ethics Education

Abstract

Collaborative content management systems are employed to handle large collections of written material concurrently generated by multiple authors. A networkbased infrastructure allows members of a group to interactively and simultaneously create, review, and edit product documentation, web content, or other interrelated documents on-line and in real time. These tools are ideal for undergraduate ethics courses which include a significant critical writing component and where students are expected to formulate conclusions and opinions in written form based upon research, analysis, and a balanced exposure to all aspects of each complex ethical and social issue. The platform also invokes certain ethical considerations, including intellectual property and anonymity, to provide students with a valuable first-hand perspective of these issues as they are being studied. The first known successful use of a specially-designed collaborative CMS in an undergraduate ethics course is reported with suggested refinements and improvements.