This page provides background information on the course and is separated into: Acknowledgements | Related Courses | Epiphany | Copyright | Colophon

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people for their help with creating this syllabus and setting up the course: Hans Hillerbrand and Bruce Lawrence, the past and present chairs of the Religion Department; Carlisle Willard, director of the Interactive Learning Facility at the Center for Teaching and Learning, and Elizabeth Shamblin, CTL multimedia specialist, who helped me cyberfy the course; and at the Journalism School of UNC-CH, where I'm a doctoral student, thanks always to my wonderful mensch of an adviser Frank Biocca who just left for the M.I.N.D. Lab at Michigan State, Tom Bowers, Asst Dean of the School, my former pedagogy teacher, and my supervisor on the JOMC Website, and Sunsite guru Paul Jones, who just returned to UNC-CH after being dearly missed in 1996.

Within media studies and the academic and electronic communities, the following people were kind enough to help me initially gather my thoughts and resources. I need to thank Anne Wells Branscomb at Harvard University, George Landow at Brown University, and Carolyn Marvin at the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, Alan Liu at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Benedict O'Mahoney, an attorney specializing in intellectual property and new technology in San Francisco, Kristina Ross at the Unversity of Texas at El Paso, and Gábor J. Tóth at Princeton University provided support or inspiration while creating this site. Indeed, coming across Liu's Voice of the Shuttle, just as I was about to drop in the humanities and cyberculture pointers, was a great stroke of luck. And to the MSS, thanks for helping me keep up with the ComRev.

I would also like to thank the people who've presented to E&I who have not been mentioned above: Deb Aikat, David Beaver, John Conway, Joline Ezzell, Linda Goodwin, Michael Grubb, Jonathan Magid, David McConville, Bruce Siceloff, and Kathy Underwood.

Related Courses [top]
In Spring 1996, Ted Friedman taught a course on cyberpunk science fiction, Imagining the Future: The Politics and Possibilities of Emerging Information Technologies, in the Literature Program of Duke University. Ted and I hoped to do something interactive with our courses. Well, maybe next time . . .

The course that most influenced the development of Ethics and the Internet is Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier, taught by Hal Abelson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who links to Related Courses across the country. Additionally, Katherine Fulton taught a complementary course, The Communications Frontier: Technology, Media and Democracy, at the Sanford Institute here at Duke. Thank you, Hal and Katherine.

Of the courses I've come across on the Net, the one that seemed to share the most similarities with Ethics and the Internet is The Information Superhighway, taught by John M. Unsworth and an interdisciplinary team at the University of Virginia. A list of Related Courses is available. See also Ethics in Computing, taught by Robert Funderlic at North Carolina State University.

Michael Froomkin teaches Law and the Internet at the University of Miami School of Law. He provides many useful hyperlinks to cases, legal documents, and other cyberlaw material, as well as an excellent list of related courses.

Additional courses that consider the topic within a civic or cultural context can be found at Netsurf Related Courses, provided by Meng Weng Wong at the University of Pennsylvania, and Internet Course Syllabi, provided by Bruce Klopfenstein at Bowling Green State University.

Other related courses certainly have come online since I originally created this page a year ago. Maybe I'll have time to locate them in the near future. Your suggestions are welcome.

Epiphany [top]
But why, you still ask, is this course offered in the Religion Department of Duke University? Has the Internet become a religion? What's going on? True believers and scoffers alike may want to check out Yahoo's pointers to Cyberculture Religions. You might also be interested in Time Magazine's Dec. 16, 1996, cover article, "Finding God on the Web."

Copyright [top]
Wendy Robinson first wrote this hypertext document in fall 1995. The intended use is as instructional materials. Although it hasn't been formally registered with the U.S. Copyright Office and doesn't use the copyright symbol, or ©, this compilation nevertheless is covered by copyright since it exists in tangible form and represents some original effort. For educational and research purposes, provided proper attribution is made and I'm not misquoted, I freely grant permission to share the information on this site that is mine to give.*

Colophon [top]
This syllabus was extensively revised in early 1997. I used MS Word 7.0 for Windows 95, Adobe Photoshop 4.0, Macromedia Backstage Internet Studio 2.0, Corel Web Designer, LView Pro, GIF Construction Kit, and Web Explosion 20,000 clip art. It's intended to look best on the most recent version of Netscape or MSIE.

Please report all nonworking URLs. Slippage is the condition of the Web.

But okay, I know. It's just not the same. A syllabus isn't a syllabus without a staple in the upper left corner.

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*In terms of "Net Culture," as Eric Schlachter, Esq., writes in his succinct overview, "Intellectual Property Regimes in the Age of the Internet," my copyright perspective in this instance probably falls into category B: Right of Attribution. (See also the hyperlinked bibliography at the bottom of the article.) The copyright attitudes of the creators of the sites to which I've pointed intentionally vary widely. Contact the content providers directly if you are interested in using their material.