Terry Bynum

Research Center on Computing & Society

In autumn 1987, I created the Research Center on Computing & Society (RCCS) at Southern Connecticut State University. The mission of the Center was to advance the field of computer ethics through research, conferences, workshops, university courses, curriculum materials, and publications of all kinds.

To generate a robust network of thinkers who could work with the Research Center on future projects, I decided to create (with help from Walter Maner) a major conference on computer ethics that would bring together computer professionals, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, business leaders, journalists and public policy makers. The result was the National Conference on Computing and Values (NCCV) hosted by Southern Connecticut State University in August 1991. The conference was funded, in part, by two grants from the National Science Foundation. Four hundred people attended from thirty-two states of the USA as well as seven other countries. It generated a wealth of research and curriculum materials, including six monographs, six video programs, and an extensive bibliography.

Most of the NCCV materials, as well as resources from many other Research Center projects, can now be found on the RCCS web site, which receives over 2 million hits per year from over 120 countries of the world.