Loyola launches new digital ethics certificate program.

June 6, 2017

Loyola’s Center for Digital Ethics & Policy will offer the first-ever certificate program in digital ethics this fall.  The nine week course will be a mix of online and face-to-face learning taught by the Center Director Bastiaan Vanacker, Ph.D. with help from some the world’s leading experts in digital ethics.

‌Topics such as privacy, surveillance, digital behavior and fake news will be covered.  Students will have the opportunity to learn the legal limits of online speech, strategies to deal with online comments, as well as have the opportunity to work on their own personal ethical codes as well as those for their organizations.

Center Founder Don Heider, Dean of Loyola School of Communication said: “This will give anyone working in the digital or technology space a chance to have excellent training in ethics and ethical decision making.”

Instructor Bastiaan Vanacker is an Associate Professor at Loyola University Chicago, where he teaches courses in media ethics and law. He holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota and a M.A. in philosophy from the University of Ghent, Belgium. He is the former head of the Media Ethics Division of the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Loyola launched the first center dedicated to digital ethics nine years ago.  Since then the center has published over 150 essays on digital ethics topics, three books and held six internal symposia.