Data Science and AI Educators' Programme: Cohort Call Five notes
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###### tags: `cohort-call-5` `DS-AI-Educators'-Programme`

:::info
- **Call time and day**: Wednesday 7 June 2023, 13:30 - 15:00 (GMT+1)
- **Meeting host**: Ayesha
- **Meeting facilitator**:
- **Github repo**: [DS and AI Educators' Programme GitHub](https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/ds-ai-educators-programme)

:::
## CC5: Embedding ethics into teaching: the background
### Agenda

| Agenda | Speaker | Time |
| ------------------------------------ | ---------------------- | ------------- |
| Intro and overview | Ayesha | 13:30 - 13:40 |
| Embedding ethics into teaching | [Dr Mhairi Aitken](https://www.turing.ac.uk/people/research-fellows/mhairi-aitken) </br> [Dr Janis Wong](https://www.turing.ac.uk/people/researchers/janis-wong) | 13:40 - 14:25 |
| Break-out room activity | | 14:25 - 14:40 |
| Wrap-up & Q&A | Ayesha | 14:40 - 15:00 |

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## Intro and housekeeping
### Roll call question :loudspeaker:

- What does ethics mean to you? Consider this question from both a teaching and a DS/AI perspective.

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## Feedback and Q&A

### Questions from participants :question:

Place your questions here and we will pick these up in the session :smile_cat:

- I’d be interested to see some examples of good practice for integrating ethical discussions throughout a data science course (that isn’t focused on teaching or assessing ethics per se, just to encourage students think about it in the context of the type of data they are analysing). But maybe this is going to come from the breakout discussions Q4!
- I may have missed this, is there a set of curricula requirements/ learning objectives for learning about ethics?
- Does the Turing provide briefings on AI and ethics? For example the handling of data, students using chat-opt etc
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### Useful Links/references :bookmark_tabs:

- [Give your link a title in square brackets](put the url in round brackets)
- [Data Ethics case studies](https://www.scu.edu/media/ethics-center/technology-ethics/IntroToDataEthics.pdf)
- [Turing Commons overview](https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/turing-commons)
- [The Turing Commons](https://alan-turing-institute.github.io/turing-commons/)
- [The Cartoon Introduction to Digital Ethics Comic](https://edps.europa.eu/comic-book_en)
- [Model Cards for Model Reporting](https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.03993)
- https://www.moralmachine.net/
- [One paper about Ethics of AI in Education](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40593-021-00239-1)
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- Mentimeter Word Cloud

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## Breakout activity :speaking_head_in_silhouette:

### Breakout room discussions

## Room 1

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
- Data collections from students, learning analytics research
- Ethics is not covered thoroughly when you are more focused into the machine algorithms
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2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
- There are concerns in teaching sessions when sensitive issues such as gender are
- Problem to have group concensus when data collections are implemented in the learning analytics
- Different understanding on the principles such as bias

3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
- There are courses covering ethics
- However the issue is on the implementation
- Ethics is more diciplining ourselves
- When there is problems, then
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
- Ethics in AI in education has been established
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40593-021-00239-1
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## Room 2

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
- Ask students to consent if they are sharing their own data for use in a practical class.
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2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
- Not directly discussed but more as a general check...
- Very little discussion about whether NOT using data is ethically questionable.
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3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
- No specific guidance.
- Not clear, would be useful to have it more designed at departmental level.
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
- Would be good to get a roadmap on the types of ethical approvals required for different research/teaching projects. At present the time commitment required is undefined.
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## Room 3

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
- Incorporate it directly in situ to what we're working on (addressing unintended consequences to solutions we're developing)
- DEI is critical in developing learning content
- Digital accessibility in learning content
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2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
- Localization of content for global audiences - cultures have different ethical contexts
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3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
- It is taught as part of the curriculum when considering building predictive models.
- It is taught directly as part of a module on Ethics. Ethics plays a fairly central role in our course but we could always do with bringing it up more.
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
- Talk about the ethical implications of the different topics you are teaching - make ethics a theme throughout your course.
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## Room 4

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
- patient data anon & security
- biases in genome sequencing (geographical and ethnic)
- in law - bias is a barrier to fairness
- In biomedical data anlaysis we consider data security / anonymity, and the impact of our analysis results on patients
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2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
- law tends to avoid subjective assessments of fairness
- practical methods of incorporating into day-to-day data science - training and teaching in this area not prioritised
- lack of own knowledge and lack of time to improve this despite wanting to be more aware
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3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
- treated as a tick box exercise (eg. ethical approval forms for research projects that are not applicable for the type of research), lack of guidance for both students and staff
- it is treated as a standalone module as part of hte MSc course I teach on, but little guidance on how to integreat this as part of other modules
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
- not that we can think of but case studies sound very effective!
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## Room 5

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
- Richard: I add a lecture session on ethics specific to the module to my teaching on Internet Protocols. I am encouraging other lecturers to add this with Mona and Janis.
- I teach a Data Ethics course
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2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
- I am a non expert trying to embed ethics teaching in technical modules where I am knowledgable -- I want to make the content correct, module-specific and applicable.
- I teach in China, there is considerable cultral context, things which might be accepted in a western cultural context as unethical are a part of normal social order.
-one challenge would be to introduce it to most of the courses we are teaching dedicating a discussion to it (half a session)
- Some advice on teaching is specific to relatively small (< 30 students) class sizes and are hard to scale ot larger class sizes.
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3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
- working on the data science programme we are expected (not enforced) to discuss ethics
- Our program is supportive of embedding ethics within teaching but it is unclear how to press ahead with this.
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
- ...
- discuss case studies and ask students if they have come across something that they might consider un/ethical
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## Room 6

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
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2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
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3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
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## Room 7

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
- ...Making good use of data - not to do any hacking etc. to obtain information certain results for example. It's better to get real results, as they are, based on evidence
- Avoid letting personal biases interfere with data interpretation or collection
- Do not manipulate data
- From a research standpoint it’s also important that I am transparent when collecting data - what do I really need, and what will I use it for?
2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
- ...For my colleagues and I, really our main concern at the moment is how to teach our students to use AI ethically.
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3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
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- we all definitely want to, we’re just not entirely sure how with the latest developments of AI.
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
- ...
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## Room 8

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
- I need to incorporate some!
- We have an independent learning course.
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2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
- I need to check with other colleagueas as several pleaopel are teaching at the moment.
- We have done theoretical parts, but practical parts do not align and they need to implemented.
- Every organization has their own values and it is not easy to find a shared path.
- Cultural gap.
3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
- We do have an ethical committee, maybe we can have more interactions with them.
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
- I'm here to learn!
- Be open so that we can learn a lot!
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## Room 9

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
- not so integrated yet
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2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
- lack of understanding
- best practices / frameworks to help
- redesigning learning materials
- need to consider privacy issues as well
- how do we measure ethics
3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
- departments generally consider ethics and the related aspects of privacy
- we introduce ethics in the research methods module
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
- MOOC course on futurelearn that is looking at ethics and ai
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## Room 10

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
- A dedicated topic on ethics, merging disciplines from social science to current tech-focused courses. Ethics is embedded in each module that is taught - not just in ethics-specific modules
- In basic coding tutorials: citing software properly, ensuring the data is kept private, exporting output from Chat GPT
2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
- lack of personal understanding - what should be taught?
- students don't always see the benefit or the importance of thinking about ethics
- Changing fields and then learning their ethical boundaries
- Prioritising the tech vs ethics
3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
- Mandatory to be approved. It'd be great if it felt less like a box-ticking exercise and more that it's essential
- Balance
- Lack of support sometimes
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
- Open up the discussions
- Open data institute (ODI) course
- [Turing Commons](https://alan-turing-institute.github.io/turing-commons/skills-tracks/)
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## Room 11

1. How is ethics (of data science and AI) incoporated into your teaching practice?
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2. What concerns or challenges do you have around embedding ethics into your practice?
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3. What is your department/institution's stance on embedding ethics into your curriculum? Would you like it to be different? If so, how?
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4. Are there any tips/examples of good practice that you would be willing to share with the community of educators?
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