MARA 284-11 (1 Unit)
Seminar in Archives & Records Management
Topic: Ethics for Archivists and Records and Information Management Professionals
Summer 2019 Syllabus

Dr. Norman Mooradian
E-mail
Office location: Claremont, California
Office Hours: By appointment

Canvas Information: Courses will be available beginning June 3, 2019, 6 am PT unless you are taking an intensive or a one-unit or two-unit class that starts on a different day. In that case, the class will open on the first day that the class meets.

This course will be available beginning June 5, 2019, at 6 am PDT. This course is worth 1 unit and runs from June 5, 2019, through July 3, 2019.

You will be enrolled in the Canvas site automatically.

Course Description

This course covers the basic tenets of ethical and professional conduct and their relation to the principles of ethics.  It explains the importance of the ethical management of information to society and to the information professions.

The course will build upon widely accepted ethical principles used in diverse professional fields such as accounting, healthcare, law, and corporate governance, applying them to the issues and context of records and information management.  These ethical foundations will be presented as a framework within which ethical and legal rules are formulated to address new developments in information technologies and practices.  Using taxonomic concepts familiar to information professionals, ethical knowledge will be present as a continuum of high-level value dimensions and principles, generally accepted moral rules, and domain-specific ethical rules and policies.

The course will explore ethical issues such as professional responsibility, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, intellectual property, management ethics, whistleblowing and leaking, and information privacy.  The ethical implications of managing digital content and electronic records will be addressed.  Current technological platforms such as enterprise content management will be discussed, as will emerging technologies such as big data.

Course Requirements

Assignments

Discussion Posts

• Each week, one or two discussion prompts will be posted. The first and last week one will be posted. The middle three weeks two will be posted.
• Each student will write a response to the post(s).
• The response should be approximately three (3) paragraphs.
• It will be evaluated based on the clarity of writing and relevance to the question.

Participation

• Each week, students will have an opportunity to participate in the class via replies to posts, questions posted on the general discussion board, and communications initiated with the instructor, including the use of office hours.
• Replying to other student’s posts is expected each week and will be the main basis for according participation points, but other means of participating will count as well.
• A guideline for discussion participation is as follows:
• For each prompt, provide a thoughtful, constructive reply to at least one student. The reply can be in the form of clarification, question, critical observation, expansion, etc.
• Evaluation will of student posts will be flexible and open to different styles. For example, two well written, thoughtful replies will be sufficient for the available points, but multiple, brief responses to other students’ posts and replies will also be sufficient.
• In the end, engagement in the course, expressed in different ways, will be acknowledged and accorded full points, while lack of engagement will be noted and accorded fewer points.

Writing Pieces

• A writing piece will be required for the middle three (3) modules/weeks.
• It will be one to two pages (single space, normal font).
• It will consist of an explanation, analysis, argument in response to a prompt.
• The writing piece will be submitted to the instructor and returned to the student with comments.
• It will be evaluated based clarity of writing, logical organization, relevance to the question, and effectiveness in explaining or supporting its central ideas.

Reflection

• At the end of the course, you will write a brief reflection describing something learned in the course that you find applicable or relevant to your work, career plans, etc.
• It can be informal and does not have to be more than a few paragraphs.

Course Calendar 

Note: Supplementary readings will be posted on Canvas.

Grading

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Course Workload Expectations

Success in this course is based on the expectation that students will spend, for each unit of credit, a minimum of forty-five hours over the length of the course (normally 3 hours per unit per week with 1 of the hours used for lecture) for instruction or preparation/studying or course related activities including but not limited to internships, labs, clinical practica. Other course structures will have equivalent workload expectations as described in the syllabus.

Instructional time may include but is not limited to:
Working on posted modules or lessons prepared by the instructor; discussion forum interactions with the instructor and/or other students; making presentations and getting feedback from the instructor; attending office hours or other synchronous sessions with the instructor.

Student time outside of class:
In any seven-day period, a student is expected to be academically engaged through submitting an academic assignment; taking an exam or an interactive tutorial, or computer-assisted instruction; building websites, blogs, databases, social media presentations; attending a study group;contributing to an academic online discussion; writing papers; reading articles; conducting research; engaging in small group work.

Course Prerequisites

MARA 284 has no prequisite requirements.

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

1. Analyze the ethical dimensions of their profession and systematically connect the ethical concepts, principles, codes of ethics, issues and methods of reasoning that form the basis of professional ethics for information professionals.
2. Competently articulate, explain, and organize the reasons for their ethical decision-making and policy positions within an institutional context.
3. Identify ethical and legal foundations of compliance frameworks and policies.

Core Competencies (Program Learning Outcomes)

MARA 284 supports the following core competencies:

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Textbooks

Required Textbooks:

• Mooradian, N. (2018). Ethics for records and information management. ALA. Available as Free eBook through King Library

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Grading Scale

The standard SJSU School of Information Grading Scale is utilized for all iSchool courses:

In order to provide consistent guidelines for assessment for graduate level work in the School, these terms are applied to letter grades:

• C represents Adequate work; a grade of "C" counts for credit for the course;
• B represents Good work; a grade of "B" clearly meets the standards for graduate level work or undergraduate (for BS-ISDA);
  For core courses in the MLIS program (not MARA, Informatics, BS-ISDA) — INFO 200, INFO 202, INFO 204 — the iSchool requires that students earn a B in the course. If the grade is less than B (B- or lower) after the first attempt you will be placed on administrative probation. You must repeat the class if you wish to stay in the program. If - on the second attempt - you do not pass the class with a grade of B or better (not B- but B) you will be disqualified.
  
• A represents Exceptional work; a grade of "A" will be assigned for outstanding work only.

Graduate Students are advised that it is their responsibility to maintain a 3.0 Grade Point Average (GPA). Undergraduates must maintain a 2.0 Grade Point Average (GPA).

University Policies

Per University Policy S16-9, university-wide policy information relevant to all courses, such as academic integrity, accommodations, etc. will be available on Office of Graduate and Undergraduate Programs' Syllabus Information web page at: https://www.sjsu.edu/curriculum/courses/syllabus-info.php. Make sure to visit this page, review and be familiar with these university policies and resources.

In order to request an accommodation in a class please contact the Accessible Education Center and register via the MyAEC portal.

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