ETHICS
Project Description

With support from the National Science Foundation, The GIS Professional Ethics Project produced the curated collection of geospatial ethics case studies available as Open Educational Resources at GISEthics.org (formerly GISProfessionalEthics.org). The Project also helped establish graduate ethics seminars on the ethical implications of geospatial technologies at Penn State, Oregon State University, and the University of Minnesota.

Project Team

In 2005, David DiBiase, Dawn Wright, and Frances Harvey organized an international graduate “virtual seminar” on ethics in GIS for the University Consortium on Geographic Information Science. That experience led to their proposal to the National Science Foundation to fund the GIS Professional Ethics Project. NSF encouraged the team to enlist several prominent ethicists and psychologists, including Michael Davis, Chuck Huff, and Matthew Keefer, along with Geographer Michael Solem, who served as project evaluator.

For more information about the project, see: DiBiase, David, Chris Goranson, Francis Harvey and Dawn Wright (2009). The GIS Professional Ethics Project: Practical Ethics Education for GIS Pros, Proceedings of the 24th International Cartography Conference. Santiago, Chile, 15-21 November. Also in Unwin, D., K. Foote, N. Tate and D. DiBiase, Eds. (2011). Teaching Geographic Information Science and Technology in Higher Education. London: Wiley and Sons.

David DiBiase

David DiBiase (Co-PI and project manager) is former Director of Education of Esri’s Education Team and of Penn State’s Dutton e-Education Institute. He founded Penn State’s online professional Certificate and Masters degree programs in GIS, and continues to teach professional ethics there.

dawn wright

Dawn Wright

Dawn Wright (Co-PI) is Chief Scientist of Esri. During this project she served as Professor of Geography at Oregon State University, where she directed OSU’s GIScience Certificate program.

francis harvey

Francis Harvey

Francis Harvey (Co-PI) is Head of the Department of Cartography and Visual Communication at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography and Professor of Visual Communication in Geography at Leipzig University in Germany. During this project he served as Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota, where he supervised ethics seminars for Minnesota’s professional Master of GIS degree program.

michael davis

Michael Davis

Michael Davis is former Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

Charles Huff

Chuck Huff

Chuck Huff is Professor of Psychology at St. Olaf College. He was a member of the panel that designed the curriculum standards in Social and Professional Issues for the ACM/IEEE Computing Curricula 2001.

matthew keefer

Matthew Keefer

Matthew Keefer is Dean Emeritus of the College of Education at Southern Illinois University.

michael solem

Michael Solem

Michael Solem is is Professor of Geography at Texas State University. He also serves the American Association of Geographers as Senior Advisor for Geography Education and Co-Director of the National Center for Research in Geography Education. For this project, Michael was responsible for project evaluation.

Want to Learn More?

Consider Penn State’s graduate seminar GEOG 581: Spatial Data Science Ethics, or its workshop on Responsible Scholarship and Professional Practice.

RSPP Workshop
GEOG 581