Ethical Dilemma- Chapter 8

Consider Alice, who is a staff member in a computer science department in New Zealand. She applies for a job at a university in the UK and is invited to travel to the UK for three-hour interview. Thus, Alice will have to fly some ten thousand miles each way in order to be present for three hours at the interview. Let us suppose that you are heading the interview committee in the UK, and are therefore Alice's primary point of contact, Alice send you an e-mail asking whether it would be possible for her to be interviewed using video conferencing facilities. She points out that this will not only save her a huge amount of flying time (at least 20 hours each way), buy also who will alleviate stress and furthermore - as she mentions - avoiding long-haul journey that are not absolutely necessary has a positive impact on the environment. in this respect she points out the significant amount of fuel that will be burnt in transporting her from New Zealand to the UK and on her return journey. She has access to high-quality video conferencing facilities and so does your university in the UK.

You bring this situation to the attention of other members of the interview committee, your head of department, and the like -- but find that nobody is particularly willing to make use of video conferencing facilities. This surprises you, especially as after all you are working in a computer science /IT department and therefore had supposed that staff would have been quite willing to embrace new technologies. You mention that costs will be saved in not having to pay Alice's airfare, and also stress that this is an opportunity to make use of computer technologies to avoid negative impact on the environment(in actual fact it is surprising how much fuel is consumed in supporting Alice's round-trip-the world trip).

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What are your views on the situation?

            If I were one of the interview committees, I will embrace that unique kind of job interview. I am highly in favor to that video conferencing as another way of interviewing the applicants but only applicable to preliminary interviews. Since both parties can access to it, why not? The interview still made possible. But as soon that she passed the video conferencing interview that would be the time that she has to leave her country to UK for formal interview.

Do you feel that this highlights (even in a small way) the opportunity to reduce environmental damage by using technologies to support communication and therefore avoid unnecessary travel?

Yes, that would be a great help to our environment.  Say for an instance, she left her country to UK for her first job interview and unfortunately, she failed. We can say that it is a waste of money and at the same time contributes pollution. Whereas if she passed the preliminary interview by using the video conferencing, she knows that greater opportunity is waiting for her. With that, leaving her place is of great purpose.

Do you believe that people should be willing to adapt to the use of such videoconferencing technologies -- is this ethical issue?

            I believe that people can adapt it easily. Businesses nowadays are always thinking for technological advancement that would create an edge among the others. With that, time will come that those people will willingly embrace the beauty of computer technologies. Of course, it will be held ethical in the eyes of human if it will not be used for some malicious and immoral acts.