Talking Hands Award
Ethics and Privacy
A code of ethics sets out in detail both acceptable and unacceptable behavior and promotes high standards of practice in relationships with human kind. Codes of ethics are traditionally divided into normative ethics, metaethics, and applied ethics.
Further, they may be voluntary or involuntary or subject to administrative review or not subject to administrative or peer review. The COE's which this author adheres to are found below.
Normative Ethics
Normative Ethics or Prescriptive Ethics is the study of moral problems which seeks to discover how one ought to act, not how one does in fact act or how one thinks one should act.
Within the Awards Community there exists the Code of Ethics, commonly referred to as the COE that originated from the desire of one of our more well known award program owners to encourage the use of a strong set of ethical standards within Award Programs.
The original author personally chose CEM/CEMA (now closed) as the guardian of the COE on the one hand due to the faith personally held that CEM/CEMA would uphold the Spirit of the document and on the other hand because approximately five CEM/CEMA members (at that time) generously offered some input to the document and edited the final draft.
Part of the 'Spirit of the COE' and the reasoning behind it being created and then gifted (see below) to the Awards Community is that: "The COE (as it is today) although displayed within the environs of web sites protected by Copyright, cannot be covered by any Copyright. The COE belongs to all individuals, groups and/or organizations who desire to abide by the spirit and content of the COE for the betterment of the International Awards Community." The 'Spirit of the COE' in its entirety.
The Code of Ethics (COE) is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike United States License with credit being given to Award Community News.
The Talking Hands Award program has adopted the COE intact with no modifications.
A complete and accurate history the COE as to its authorship, development and subsequent use is available in a PDF format.
The COE as adopted and adapted by the Talking Hands Award Program is available in a PDF format.
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The original COE held in trust as a "guardian" by Cem/CEMA in a PDF format..
Metaethics
Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? A discussion authored by myself is found in our resource section.
Ethical origins discussion is also available in a PDF format. .
As a member of APEX, this author agrees to a specific code of conduct, which was developed over a period of time and conceptualized in a formal presentation, whose parts are found below in a PDF format.
Applied Ethics
Applied ethics involves examining specific controversial issues by using the conceptual tools of metaethics and normative ethics, discussions in applied ethics try to resolve these controversial issues.
Peer reviews have been subject to criticism throughout a broad spectrum of activities. A discussion of one statement from the COE above is discussed.
I agree to immediately inform any Criteria compliant Applicant in writing, of a 'Refrain to Evaluate' if it is found that a Conflict of Interest would occur in evaluating their Web site-example. Such as may occur upon being requested to evaluate the Web site of a good friend. I will offer such Applicant a choice of Evaluator taken from our Membership Listing.
Refrain to Evaluate discussion available only in a PDF format.
Disclaimer
All applicants who follow our submission policy will be given specific reasons for failure to obtain a minimum score of twenty-three (23) upon written request. However, upon correction and submission to our judges, this act will not constitute approval. All of our judges must be in agreement for the award to be presented and their decision is final and not subject to disclosure.
Privacy notification is apart of application forms.
