Beyond guidelines: How to do ethics in software development?
Background and Vision
Over three years, the SIMPORT project united software developers and ethicists in a collaborative Ethics by Design approach, aiming to develop applications for digital sovereignty in location-based-services. Despite the existence of numerous ethical guidelines and principles, implementing ethics in software development remains, and should remain an empirical question.
In response, our final report is rooted in the day-to-day challenges faced in SIMPORT´s interdisciplinary collaboration, where ethicists occasionally felt overlooked and developers finding ethical input abstract. Combining theoretical research on the ethics of innovation with insight from ethnographic engagement and in-depth interviews, we present our findings and recommendations. In addition, we provide some hands-on tools to spark deep ethical work in software development.
Insights and Tools
Research Findings
Explore our profound insights into the ethics of technological innovation. Our findings are rooted in both, social sciences and philosophical perspectives, coupled with hands-on-involvement in an ethics-by-design project.
Recommendations
Discover our three sets of recommendations – on narratives, practices and attitudes – crafted from our theoretical and empirical research to actively foster deep integration of ethics in software development.
Ethics Tools
Explore a suit of practical ethics tools, including card-based discussion formats, prompts for integrating ethical reflection into agile software development processes, and ethics worksheets.
Resources
Executive Summery
A condensed overview of key findings and recommendations on integrating ethics into software development (approx. 5 pages / 1.500 words).
Full Research Report
In-depth theoretical and empirical analysis, research findings, and comprehensive recommendations for integrating ethics in software development (approx. 60 pages / 25.000 words)
Journal Publication
A scholarly article will be published, to elaborate original research on the concept of ‘geographies of responsibility’ (approx. 15 pages / 8.000 words).
Glossary
A comprehensive overview of key terms, providing a snapshot of the Ethics by Design landscape within the realm of location-based services.
