Even more absurd, to me at least, is the fact that other professors at the college have been warned that if they do not comply to working together with Rekkedal they may be losing their job since they then “refuse to do their job”, which is ground for firing. One last thing is that they, the other professors and everybody else involved, are not allowed to talk to anybody about this, which obviously includes the media. Recently Rekkedal himself accused on of the college’s leading professors for offensive treatment against him when the professor questioned that Rekkedal’s work was still being used in the education.

Now, why does this affect me and why do I care? Well first of all I was actually thinking about applying for a course in military history at Försvarshögskolan, something I have now decided not to do because of how the board has handled this issue. Secondly, I honestly find this offensive. There are a few rules in scientific research, one of the most basic ones is the fact that you should never plagiarise and always clearly state what work is your own and what you’ve used from other sources. If the professor in a class can’t even follow this really simple and very important rule how will that look to the students? Morally, he would not be able to, in any way, argue with the students on this issue and that’s not how it should be to study on an university level to say the least. Thirdly, I feel sorry for the other researchers at the academy. Any work they do together with Rekkedal will in the scientific community be seen as nothing more than trash and possible even as copyright infringement, there is absolutely no credibility in work that has the name NM Rekkedal next to it. For the rector to say that those that do not work with him may lose their job is so disrespectful to the honest working scientific researchers.

Things like this really pisses me off. Cite your sources, acknowledge the great research that has already been done by others and if you can’t follow this, the last thing you should be doing is teaching classes. Försvarshögskolan, I’m embarrassed by your total lack of scientific research principals and you’ve definitely lost a potential student here.

Sources:
From SR: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]
Fron DN: [1]

New information has surfaced, actually some of this information became known to the local police on the very same day the website went online. The problem is that poachers use the service to track the wolfs in order to hunt them down. Wolfs are always a hot debate topic here in Sweden and there are several groups that would like to see the wolfs gone, or at least diminish them.

I think this is a perfect example of why it’s important to think your design through before you release it. Give people the ability to track certain animals and there are bound to be consequences—I for one would have loved the service so that I could be able to find great locations where I can find and photograph these beautiful animals. Instead of protecting the dogs the result was an illegal hunt of wolfs. It’s crucial in the design process to sit down and try to picture all the different effects the design might produce. Obviously, this is easier said then done—but it’s the designers obligation to do so.

If “we” as designers are narrow minded and only think about one possible usage of the service we are designing, then we have failed. We have an ethical responsibility when we’re designing. It’s impossible to foresee all different affects an application or a system might have. Everybody is individual and due to several varying factors the end user will use the product in unpredictable ways. That being said, even I would have raised my hand in a meeting during the design process if I was developing the aforementioned service. It’s such an obvious vicious usage of the service that I’m right out shocked that it was even released.

Source (in Swedish): SR.se: Tjuvjägare utnyttjade vargwebb