This project investigated the use of Web 2.0 tools and Open Educational Resources (OER) to support students engaged in project-based learning in ICS. Capitalising on existing environments, tools and learning resources, the project explored the potential of these openly and freely accessible resources to facilitate a space where students can be encouraged to identify, engage with and discuss ethical issues that arise in their project work. The project consisted of a small-scale investigation into students? views of social networking as a class of tools potentially useful in a project-based course taught entirely at a distance, with a particular focus on the area of ethical reasoning. Ethics is an important part of the course and integral to its assessment, and the work carried out enabled an initial evaluation of the OER in the area of ethics in ICS (Ferreira & Monk, 2009) created with previous support from the HEA Network for ICS.

Keywords

collaborative learning · ethics · information technology · online communities · web 2.0 · project-based learning