The Linux Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), and Ethical Intelligence have all partnered up to create a free online course on ethics in open-source development.
It is designed for developers looking to apply ethics to their coding practice, and for product managers looking to incorporate ethics-by-design technology into their workflows.
According to the Linux Foundation, developers aren’t always thinking through how a piece of code could be used by a bad actor or how an algorithm might affect different classes of people.
They explained that this is why it is important to include ethical principles like transparency and accessibility in open source.
After this course, students should be able to assess technology for ethical blind spots, apply ethical critical thinking techniques, understand the Ethics Journey Cycle in open-source development, and utilize ethics as a decision-making tool for risk mitigation. They will also be prepared for roles like a Responsible Technologist or Ethics Developer Lead.
The course includes two to three hours of material, including videos and quizzes. It was developed by Olivia Gambelin, CEO of Ethical Intelligence; Rahaf Albalkhi, member of the IEEE P7003-Algorithmic bias considerations working group; Dr. Michael Klenk, former management consultant; and Rand Hirmiz philosophy Ph.D candidate at York University who is specializing in the ethics of AI in healthcare.
Registration for the course is now open.
