Research Study
Professor Hoffman's MGT 550 Summer Class
Important Notice
My thanks to G. Scott Kreft, who found a bug in the Dioptra client. There is a new version. The old version was 0.22. Please uninstall it. The new version is 0.23. Please install it. It's on the download page.
This study is about using software to support ethical decision making. You'll use Dioptra, a system designed for this task. The study runs from July 3 to July 29, 2008. Kieran will be in class on Tuesday, July 15, in case there are any questions.
Professors Kieran Mathieson and Fred Hoffman are running the study. Kieran is the main contact. Contact him at mathieso@oakland.edu.
Task
You work for a beverage company that has developed a new energy drink called Buzzsaw. The marketing department has designed a marketing plan for Buzzsaw. Your team should review the plan from an ethical point of view. You can suggest anything you want, from scrapping the plan, making changes, or accepting it as is. You must justify your recommendation.
The case is given in the project. You can also see the case here.
Use Dioptra to work on the problem in any way you see fit. Please use Dioptra for ALL your interaction; don't talk about the case in person, by phone, or by email.
Make any assumptions you want, as long as you don't "assume away" the ethical problem. Document them in Dioptra's Elaborated Situation Description.
Your team will be asked to make a short presentation on Tuesday, July 29. Dioptra automatically generates PowerPoint-like presentations, if you want to use them.
And a survey!
After the presentation, please complete the survey at:
http://www.sba.oakland.edu/faculty/mathieson/dioptra_survey_summer08
Please do this within three days of the final presentation. Kieran will send a list of the people who have completed the survey to Professor Hoffman, so grades can be finalized.
The Software
Download the Dioptra installation program from the download page. Run the program, and it will install Dioptra. You can uninstall it once the study is over. Note: Currently, Dioptra runs only on Windows. :-(
Run the program from the start menu, like any Windows program. Log in with the user name and password you have been given. Double-click on the Buzzsaw case to open it. Note: you must be connected to the Internet to use Dioptra.
Dioptra is not a plug-and-chug program, like the wizards where you answer some questions and the software does the work for you. It's more like a toolbox. You are in charge, and have to decide how to use Dioptra.
When you first start Dioptra, you may not know what to do next. A good place to start is to look at the article "Introduction to Dioptra" in the resource tree. There's also the "When You Are Stuck" article that has some good pointers.
You have access to two projects. There's a sample project you can use to play about with Dioptra, to learn how to use it. It's called the sandbox project.
So to get started, you might:
- Read a few of the resources. You'll learn how you work on a project by adding discussion tools, brainstorming tools, editors, etc.
- Open the sample project. Mess about a bit, add some components, delete them, etc. The sample project is just a sandbox for you to play in.
- When you're ready, start using the workflow discussion tool to talk about how you want to get started on the project. For example, you might say "Let's add a discussion tool to the Elaboration section, so we can talk about what is happening in the case, whether anything is ambiguous, or anything is missing." Or maybe, let's add a brainstorming tool, so we can list the stakeholders."
Questions?
If you have questions, please contact Kieran at mathieso@oakland.edu. Kieran will also be in class on Tuesday, July 15, in case there are any questions.
