EECS 690

1. EECS 690 March 8

2. The Digital Divide • The phrase ‘digital divide’ refers to the gap between those who are computer literate and/or have access to computing technology and those who do not. • The digital divide does not strictly adhere to divisions between rich and poor persons or between rich and poor nations, but there is a substantial degree of overlap.

3. Domestic Economic Causes • The overlap of the digital divide with economic divisions domestically is owed largely to the following: • Disparity of access at home • Disparity of access at school • Disparity of access to higher education • Disparity of public access

4. International Economic Causes • The overlap of the digital divide with economic divisions between nations is owed largely to the following: • Disparity of access to technology in general (includes infrastructure problems, and lack of public and educational access) • Disparity of comparative cost of technology

5. Domestic social causes • Factors that contribute to the digital divide domestically include, but are not limited to: • Age • Physical disabilities • Other demographic divisions: • The digital divide includes access to the computing professions themselves, and there has been a great deal of discussion about the degree to which differences in race and gender overlap with the digital divide, why this is the case, and what to do about it.

6. International Social/Legal causes • The digital divide is often enhanced by the following factors: • Disparity of political freedom • Cultural Assumptions, including problems stemming from language and literacy barriers. • “For instance, databases that require names to consist of a first, middle and last name (imagine being asked to legally change your name because it doesn’t match the format expected by your employer’s database [24]); online conference submission forms that cannot accept international characters; mail transfer protocols unable to transmit messages with international characters; and news websites that deliver news from Spain when the user selects Spanish as their language.” – from an EMU computer science journal, available on the course website. • Communication protocol is also a highly culturally specific issue.

7. Professional Ethical Responsibility? • ABET encourages the following (among other things) in any ethics course: • Interpret the social context of a particular implementation. • Identify assumptions and values embedded in a particular design including those of a cultural nature. • Describe positive and negative ways in which computing alters the modes of interaction between people. • Explain why computing/network access is restricted in some countries. • Articulate the impact of the input deficit from diverse populations in the computing profession. 

8. Professional as opposed to Personal ethical obligations • As human beings, it seems we owe at least something to fellow human beings. What we generally owe to each other is covered by personal ethical obligation. Professional obligations enter the picture in the sense that a special responsibility falls upon persons who are in a special position for addressing certain issues, be it because of their jobs, unique abilities, or specialized knowledge.

9. Paper Implications • The intent of the paper is for you to select and focus on what professionals can and should do to address some particular cause of the digital divide, either domestically or internationally, or depending on the cause, both. • The De George reading is full of productive and practical ideas for approaches, and the Web contains many more. • Don’t get too general, and don’t forget that at heart, the paper is an ethical argument. Don’t get too wrapped up in the technical aspect of whatever approach(es) you discuss.