Session S3D
Work in Progress – Using a Collaborative Content
Management System for Ethics Education
David Williams
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV 89557
Abstract - Collaborative content management systems are
employed to handle large collections of written material
concurrently generated by multiple authors. A network-
based 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.
Index Terms - Content Management Systems, Ethics
Education, Critical Writing.
OVERVIEW
Ethics courses are generally unique within the engineering
curriculum. Their concentration on non-technical issues and
dependence on academic and professional skill sets not
usually perceived by students as critical to engineering often
result in less-then-positive student attitudes toward the course.
However, their importance in ABET-accredited programs can
not be overlooked, as they provide required social context for
the technical backbone of the curriculum. Engendering greater
student interest and participation while providing the
necessary instruction can be a formidable task. Conventional
methods of instruction, including a large number of critical
writing exercises, are often disdained by students and can be
even more burdensome to the instructors who must grade
them. Allowing a greater degree of “cross-pollination” within
the class to expose them to the written work of their peers
would only add to the difficulty of course management.
The advent of network-based collaborative content
management systems (CMS) during the last decade has given
rise to an ideal tool for the instruction of engineering ethics.
By permitting real-time access to the entire body of work
generated by the class, student interaction via written
discourse is facilitated by an automated system which reduces
an otherwise impossible task to quite manageable proportions.
0-7803-9077-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
35th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S3D-8
CMS BASICS
Many of today’s students have never known a world without
the world wide web. Delivery of academic content using a
mechanism of such familiarity alleviates a portion of the
discomfort associated with critical reading and writing.
Further, the concept of on-line dialog is widely used in other
venues and is therefore already familiar to most net-savvy
students. The primary function of a CMS is to allow the
interactive creation of web-based content by a number of users
without requiring the administrative privileges normally
associated with the creation and updating of server-based web
pages. All practical CMS use a browser-based interface which
handles these administrative tasks securely and transparently.
One of the oldest and most successful CMS platforms is
generically known as a “wiki”, described by its creators as
“the simplest online database that could possibly work”. [1] In
its various incarnations, including a free open-source
implementation known as TWiki [2], users are free to add and
modify any content on the web site as they see fit. While this
model has proven highly successful in some applications,
including the creation of documentation by a team of
developers, its use in a graded academic setting would be
problematic. Students with the power to modify or delete the
work of others, especially in a setting where some would
rather be doing anything other than reading and writing
essays, would present unlimited opportunity for chaos.
Other CMS platforms provide greater security by
establishing document ownership and a pre-determined
operational protocol. There are untold dozens of such systems
currently available with various features, including
commercial implementations such as WebCT [3], but none are
expressly adapted for use in the delivery of this type of course.
COURSE IMPLEMENTATION
After a comprehensive examination of the available open-
source tools, the Plone [4] content management system was
selected as the base system from which a specially adapted
ethics education tool would be developed. Plone is written in
the interactive object-oriented programming language of
Python [5] and is well-suited for further development. The
experimental version of the new ethics education tool was
christened “Discoursia” and utilized in the spring semester,
2005 upper division course entitled “Challenges and Social
Aspects of Computing” given by the Department of Computer
Science and Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno.
October 19 – 22, 2005, Indianapolis, IN

FIGURE 1
SECTION OF CONTENT PAGE FROM DISCOURSIA.NET.
Students subscribed to the Discoursia site using a pseudonym
of their choice, thereby providing a degree of peer anonymity.
Weekly topics were introduced by the instructor in the context
of the most recent news and developments. Students were then
charged with the responsibility of either beginning a new
discourse on one aspect of that topic and/or making a
significant contribution to another discourse. Generally,
between five and ten discoursia were begun each week with as
many as 20 or as few as zero follow-up posts for each.
Students were awarded participation points for any significant
contribution (generally 250-400 words each) and all such
contributions were required to include at least one factual
reference. This on-line content was not graded; the objective
was to encourage students to read, research, and write on the
various topics without grading inhibition. Participants were
encouraged to be thoughtful, engaging, expressive, and, where
appropriate, provocative. At the conclusion of each topic, peer
assessment of the most interesting discoursia was conducted
and all contributors to those were awarded additional bonus
participation points. Participation throughout the semester
constituted 40% of the course grade. There were no incidents
of inappropriate content or conduct throughout the course.
Each student was required to complete two research and
analysis papers of approximately 1,500 words during the
semester. Topics within the scope of the course were selected
by students based on their previous experiences or technical
interests. These papers were also published on the Discoursia
site and were reviewed by three of their peers; these peer
reviews constituted a significant component of the grading
scheme (approximately one-third of the papers’ total 20%
contribution to the final course grade). Without exception, the
peer reviews were appropriately conducted, helpful to the
authors, and wholly consistent with the spirit and practice of
other academic peer review processes. Instructor grading of
content and mechanics comprised the remainder of the
research paper grades as well as the entire grades for the hand-
written midterm and final exams, which contributed the
remaining 40% to each student’s course grade.
0-7803-9077-6/05/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
35th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S3D-9
Session S3D
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT AND PLANED IMPROVEMENTS
The base system is rich with features very useful for this
application, including the ability to conduct anonymous
polling with non-duplication tracking; this feature was used
for peer evaluations and the awarding of bonus points.
However, certain system security features were fortified,
especially in consideration of the fact that the entire target
audience was comprised of ambitious and talented computer
science majors. The first round of design improvements to the
system included a revised mechanism to allow students to
publish their work directly to the publicly-accessible areas of
the site, allowing the option of eliminating administrative
review. A complex system of document ownership and access
permission was implemented with further refinements
indicated for the future. Currently under development is the
capability to track and report each students’ participation
points interactively, a task which was accomplished manually
this semester. An additional module is contemplated which
will allow instantaneous peer review of every student post to
better acknowledge valuable contributions to the body of
work. Finally, the refined system will be packaged with an
open-source GNU/Linux operating system for free
dissemination to other institutions interested in utilizing the
Discoursia system. Over time, it is envisioned that a
significant body of content applicable to engineering ethics
education will be accumulated and similarly offered for
distribution.
REFERENCES
[1] Wiki.org, http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki
[2] “TWiki - an Enterprise Collaboration Platform”, http://www.twiki.org/
[3] WebCT, http://webct.com/
[4] “Plone: A user-friendly and powerful open source Content Management
System”, http://plone.org/
[5] The Python Programming Language, http://python.org/
October 19 – 22, 2005, Indianapolis, IN