A Virtual Summer Workshop Series

Organized by the ICA Commission on Ethics in Cartography 

Which values and frameworks provide practical ethical guidance for your cartographic work?” “Which values and frameworks would support a code of ethics in cartography?”

In our first workshop, we explored a corpus of over 50 ethics-related documents in cartography and related fields to see what values they included and how the documents were structured. In our second workshop, we explored the types of values in the documents and the situations or circumstances in which these ethical values arise in cartographic practice.

In this third and final workshop, on Wednesday September 2 at 8:00 AM Pacific time, we’ll share the results of the analysis we performed on the full set of values and the frameworks in which they were found. Incorporating insights gained from the first two workshops, in this third workshop, we’ll collectively answer these questions: “Which values and frameworks provide practical ethical guidance for your cartographic work?” and “Which values and frameworks would support a code of ethics in cartography?”

With these answers and the results from the first two workshop, we’ll be able to achieve our goal to share a toolkit with a set of value statements, real-world examples in which they apply to the work cartographers do, and frameworks into which they can be placed so that organizations can formulate their own code of ethics and other types of ethics-related documents for cartography. With this approach, we aim to offer resources that can guide practical decision-making and help cartographers better navigate ethical landscapes in cartography.

The ICA Commission on Ethics in Cartography invites anyone interested to join us for this online workshop series, with the last workshop on September 2.

Agenda and Format

The third workshop will be held on Zoom on September 2 at 8:00 AM Pacific time. You can participate live, or at your convenience afterwards, or both. We will provide the PowerPoint slides and instructions for participation for participants on or after September 2.

Participation

Join via this Zoom link (see details below) https://us02web.zoom.us/meetings/87222156798/invitations?signature=UkB6bYtRsgmX-AfEN-bX4jF664mGfZ91FCzYD-9h4NE.

Or participate asynchronously by following the instructions in this folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EtGGtnLE68FqAy9VSCbN9Rt1bp3vrF5x.

We welcome all!

We welcome students, professionals, academics, and others at all career stages – your presence and participation are highly valued. Our aim is to create an inclusive and inviting experience for all to all, respecting your confidentiality and supporting a wide range of perspectives and experiences. We also welcome your input outside of the workshops—we are always happy to get feedback to add to our content and improve our process!

Please contact Aileen Buckley – abuckley@esri.com  – with any questions or comments. We look forward to your insights!

Zoom Link

Topic: Nat Case’s Zoom Meeting

Time: Sep 2, 2026 08:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

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https://us02web.zoom.us/launch/jc/87222156798

Meeting ID: 872 2215 6798

Passcode: 125838

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A Virtual Summer Workshop Series

Organized by the ICA Commission on Ethics in Cartography 

The second Mapping Ethical Landscapes in Cartography workshop was held on July 21, 2026, via Zoom. People can also participate any time after July 21 by following the instructions in this shared Google folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15dfV8Pi8vAJnpndhda3O9ziPMHq6ObfR. About 25 people from multiple nations participated in the workshop in real-time.

The workshop started off with an introduction and recap of the first workshop which can be viewed in this PowerPoint slide deck.

We then set the stage of discussion by first noting that values and principles are useful, but they provide ambiguous instructions as to what should be done in specific circumstances, i.e., what actions one should take if we encounter an ethical conundrum in a practical work situation? Is it possible to provide more actionable guidance for cartographers? We also explained how a formal content analysis of the corpus of ethics-related documents that were explored in the first workshop led us to some insights that could help answer these questions.

The content analysis was performed by D. Chelse Nestel, GIS librarian, cartographer, and researcher at the University of Oregon, and co-organizer of these workshops, with the help of a number of UO students. The corpus included 65 documents from 49 different organizations. Metadata for each document was collected to identify the following:

• What kind of document it is, for example, a code of ethics, code of conduct, values statements, etc. There were 26 different terms used by the creators of the documents to describe what they are. They found that a code of conduct and code of ethics are most common type of document in the corpus.
• They also captured those who signed onto it. Results ranged from a single organization to a consortium for the American Geosciences Institute Code of Ethics of 24 signatories from diverse groups such as the American Association of Geographers to Society of Exploration Geophysicists (extractive geology).
• They also surveyed if it is enforceable and found that most are not.

In addition, they extracted a total of 690 acts and values that are included in the documents, as well as consequences, risks, and opportunities. An additional 139 were added as a result of this workshop’s discussions, resulting in a total of 838 acts and values.

Aileen Buckley, commission chair, then organized these acts and values into major categories, sub-categories, and violations and circumstances. The results of that analysis will be shared in the third workshop on September 2.

Meanwhile, Nat Case, commission vice-chair, compiled a list of broad categories for ethical values which included the following:

1. Communications, respect, conflict: transparency, confidentiality, respect (especially for non-centered groups), acknowledge co-creators, conflicts of interest, mechanisms for dispute/conflict, responsibility.
2. Wider/group protection and continuity: sustainability, resources, continuity, competition, group protection, multiple-group conflict, reputation.
3. Competence and capacity: claims and correction, acknowledgement, quality, fair play/graft, deadlines and scope, communications, contractual obligation, payment.
4. Harm prevention: map use and misuse, privacy, sensitive sites, consent, planning and monitoring, mitigation, emerging technologies.
5. Source data: clarity, transparency, confidentiality, respecting permission.
6. Data quality: currency, precision and accuracy; completeness/exclusion; scale-appropriate use.
7. Cartographic representation: projection, classification, exaggeration/generalization.

These broad categories were used to structure two participant exercises during the workshop. The exercises were facilitated using Padlet, an online, interactive digital bulletin board where people can work together in real time by posting text, images, links, videos, and documents.

The first exercise questioned what participants thought of the list of values and whether anything was missing. The results can be seen here: https://padlet.com/nestel/list-of-values-ps0yngfjxk8jjva1. The second exercise asked in what circumstances of situations might these values arise. The results can be seen here: https://padlet.com/nestel/list-of-values-2h6x1upg020yn4va. As mentioned earlier, these results and comments in the Zoom meeting chat were added to the list of acts and values.

The workshop concluded with an open discussion around these questions:

• What struck you as especially important?
• What seems to be missing?
• Is there anything else you want to share?

The next steps are to condense the acts and values into a manageable and comprehensive set that can be used to fill the frameworks when creating an ethics-related document. In addition, the frameworks are being analyzed to identify their contents and organization. Together, the acts and values and the frameworks will constitute the core of the toolkit we aim to share that will allow people and organizations to write their OWN codes of ethics and/or related documents, specific to their needs.

The last and final workshop in this summer virtual workshop series will be on Wednesday, September 2 at 8:00 am Pacific time. See this blog post for more details.

Help us continue the conversation! Join our Discord Community: Download the app: https://discord.com/download Join: https://discord.gg/AHMr8xjqT. You can also Join our Google group: ethics.icaci.org/join-us!

A Virtual Summer Workshop Series

Organized by the ICA Commission on Ethics in Cartography 

What values do cartographers rely on to guide their practice? In what situations do those values come into play? Do these values provide the practical guidance cartographers need?

In our first workshop, we explored a corpus of over 50 ethics-related documents in cartography and related fields to see what values they included and how the documents were structured. After the workshop, we performed a formal content analysis and came up with a draft set of values in and characteristics of the documents in the corpus. Do the values hold up? Are we on track or are we way off base? We need your help to decide!

In this second workshop, on Tuesday July 21 at 8:00 AM Pacific time, we’ll share the results of the content analysis we performed, which incorporates insights gained from the first workshop. Collectively, we’ll answer these questions: “Which values are appliable to ethical issues you face in your work or cartographic practice?” and “What values are not on our list?” Then we’ll to take things down to the next level by asking, “What practices or circumstances do these values relate to?”, so that we can start to identify practical examples and real ethical issues that cartographers grapple with.

The answers to these questions will inform our work in the last workshop (September 2) in which we’ll fit these values into different ethical frameworks. The ultimate goal is to share a set of value statements, real-world examples in which they apply to the work cartographers do, and frameworks into which they can be placed so that agencies and organizations can formulate their own code of ethics, shared guiding principles, value statements, and other types of ethics-related documents. With this approach, we aim to offer resources that can guide practical decision-making and help cartographers better navigate ethical landscapes in cartography.

The ICA Commission on Ethics in Cartography invites anyone interested to join us for this online workshop series, with the next workshop on July 21 and the final workshop in September 2.

Agenda and Format

The second workshop will be held online on July 21 at 8:00 AM Pacific time. You can participate live, or at your convenience afterwards, or both. The online workshop will be partially recorded for later viewing, and participants will have the opportunity to engage through online surveys and discussions.

Participation

Since you’ve already joined our Google Group, I’ll be sending you details about how to join the live online workshop or participate later at a time that works best for you.

We welcome all!

We welcome students, professionals, academics, and others at all career stages – your presence and participation are highly valued. Our aim is to create an inclusive and inviting experience for all to all, respecting your confidentiality and supporting a wide range of perspectives and experiences. We also welcome your input outside of the workshops—we are always happy to get feedback to add to our content and improve our process!

Please contact Aileen Buckley – abuckley@esri.com  – with any questions or comments. We look forward to your insights!

Cheers!

Aileen

The first Mapping Ethical Landscapes in Cartography workshop was held on June 2, 2026, via Zoom. People can also participate any time after June 2 by following the instructions in this shared Google folder. About 40 people from multiple nations participated in the workshop in real-time.

The workshop started off with an introduction which can be viewed in this video. Breakout sessions allowed participants to discuss ethics-related documents in this shared folder.

Participant discussions centered around the following topics, both in breakout groups and in open discussion:

• Admitting errors, preserving accuracy, and reputation: This discussion focused on The Mapmakers Mantra, a statement on ethical considerations in cartography. Discussants were interested in the willingness to admit when mapmakers are wrong. They reported that when someone has scientific authority, admitting incorrect information or wrongdoing can be exceptionally challenging as it can be perceived to put reputation at risk. However, discussants felt clarity and transparency were important. They suggested one way to assure accuracy in ethical values is to delegation to committee – like the peer-review process. This helps formulate ethical truth and transparency that helps shape perspective and an attitude of ethical behavior.
• Guidelines vs. principles: One group of participants felt the term “principles” is spot on – they reported that it has less of an enforcement factor than “guidelines”, which sound preachy and more line “guardrails”.
• Document type and industry values: Another discussion concerned document type and industry values. Discussants observed that the CDC ethics-related document was more about cartographic guidelines than value statements, although there may be something in there that relates to ethics, like data masking. Participants in this conversation felt that they liked the shorter-length documents (like the ASCE code of ethics) better, although the content of the shorter documents can be linked to related resources, like articles, position papers, and such (as with the code of ethics for journalists). They also preferred ethics-related documents that clearly related to the industry, like those for journalists or civil engineers.
• Stakeholders: One group liked that the Code of Ethics for the American Society of Civil Engineers focused on the relation of ethical statements to different stakeholders, like society, the profession, peers, and more.
• Personal conduct vs professional conduct: Another discussion centered around the distinction between ethics-related documents focused on regulating personal conduct versus advising on professional conduct. They observed some of the documents related to how people act at events, others related to how people do their work. One question brought up was “How cartographers can map archeological sites and still protect them?” Discussants viewed this question as a good example of a practical application for ethics in cartography.
• Ethics of map users: Participants brought up the ethical use of maps for unethical behavior, observing that at the beginning of the mapmaking process, ethics is the responsibility of the mapmaker, but at the end, it’s the responsibility of the map user. When does that switch happen?
• Applications for ethics-related documents: Our group included a participant who wants to know how the things in these documents can be applied to their work.
• Ethics and AI: Some discussions centered around AI. One participant reported they were interested in ethics and AI, and they even tried to use AI to help come up with their own ethics statements. Another discussion centered around using AI to examine ethics related documents, observing that it would be interesting to point AI at ethics-related documents to see what comes out but that an AI analysis might not very ethical! 😊 A third discussion centered around ethics and AI more generally, asking “Can it help understand GIS process and participants better? Or help identify gaps?”
• Manifestos: One group discussed the IAPG Cape Town Statement on Geoethics from 2016, which was viewed as more like a set of position statements or aspirations than guidelines or a code. Discussants felt that the Cape Town Statement on Geoethics was reminiscent of Right Map Making, and were struck that this ethics-related document was not like the kinds of documents that the rest of the workshop had been talking about – it was more like (and modeled after) the Hippocratic Oath and focused on a single person or a single role.
• Trust: One discussion concerned trust in maps, asking “How do you talk about trust in maps; how do you measure the trust in maps; do you talk about trust a carrot or a stick?” They viewed that the challenge was to make ethics related documents comprehensive but succinct enough that people can consume them.

Participants also answered the following three Menti polls (results as of 6-2-26) – feel free to answer them yourself if you have not already!

What values showed up in the ethics-related documents?

Was anything unclear, missing, or not useful?

What are your big take-aways from today?

The workshop concluded with an open discussion in which these points were raised:

• Is there a responsibility that the map itself assumes, rather than the mapmaker or map user?
• We need to make an effort to reach out to more people, especially more early-career people, for participation in the workshops. For example, we can connect with the Next Generation Cartographers
• Trust, and some of the other terms that describe values in the documents, can be fuzzy, catch-all terms. How do we link the power of those terms to something with meaningful content?

The next steps are to begin analyzing the ethics-related documents to identify core principles and values to assess commonalities and gaps. This information will help inform the development of a framework for ethics in cartography. Please contact us if you would like to help with this effort!

Also, let’s continue the conversation!

• Join our Discord Community:
  • Download the app: https://discord.com/download
  • Join: https://discord.gg/AHMr8xjqT
• You can also Join our Google group: ethics.icaci.org/join-us

We are reaching out to invite you to an online workshop series, organized through the ICA Commission on Ethics in Cartography, on Mapping Ethical Landscapes in Cartography on June 2nd, 8 AM Pacific time.

We realize this invitation is very short notice. However, we have an asynchronous option that enables participation without joining the Zoom meeting. Please email Aileen Buckley (abuckley@esri.com) if you are interested in attending (either in real time or at later your convenience), and we will make sure you have all the info. Additionally, we will hold more workshops later this summer.

Ethics is best understood in context, but the codes of ethics that impact the practice of many cartographers were often not written by practicing cartographers. Together, in this workshop, we will survey existing codes of ethics, codes of conduct, guiding principles, and such worldwide to generate a map of the ethical landscapes they create. We will pay attention to the actors, situations, structures, and values that emerge. Later in the workshop series, we will test the results against our own experience as mapmakers. When do values and guidance resonate (or fail to resonate) with our needs? What considerations are missing?

From this output, we will generate a draft list of considerations when writing a code of ethics, which will form an ethical framework. We will test those ethical considerations and draft the framework at subsequent workshops to solicit feedback from as many perspectives as possible, including a workshop at the 2027 International Cartographic Conference in Warsaw, July 18-23. Do the considerations and the framework speak to different experiences of mapmaking and contain language and content that help guide practice, articulate values, and answer questions? What is missing?

Our ultimate goal is to create an ethical toolkit that goes with the framework, which not only help mapmakers, cartographic communities, and organizations develop their own codes of ethics specific to their situated needs and values, but also helps facilitate discussions on these and related matters.

Please share this invitation with to anyone who may be interested. Students, academics, professionals at all career stages, and people who make maps worldwide are very welcome and needed in these conversations. We are happy to answer any questions about this workshop series (abuckley@esri.com), and we hope to see you on June 2 or later this summer!

Can you say no to an unethical request? Have you had to judge the ethical behavior of another? Have you seen a lack of clarity that lets bad behavior go unchallenged? 

No matter who you are or where you work, as a cartographer, you are likely to come face-to-face with ethical dilemmas in your professional life. Yet, you may not always have a clear set of guiding principles to support ethical decision-making in your work or organization.

The ICA Commission on Ethics in Cartography invites anyone interested to join us for an online workshop series, taking place on June 2nd, in mid-July, and in early September. The ultimate objective is to develop a generalized framework for codes or systems of guiding principles that relate to ethics in cartography. This framework will help cartographic communities and organizations create comprehensive sets of ethical principles or guidelines specific to their practitioners, circumstances, and needs. 

The first step is to survey the field of cartography to identify existing guiding principles – such as codes of ethics, codes of conducts, value statements, and similar documents – that shape the ethical landscapes in cartography. By gathering and analyzing these resources, we can extract key content, identify important characteristics, and spot any gaps or overlaps. This will form the foundation of the generalized framework, which can then be built with materials and resources to help communities and organizations develop their own guiding principles.

Agenda and Format

The first workshop will be held online on June 2nd at 8:00 AM PST. You can participate live, or at your convenience afterwards, or both. The online workshop will be partially recorded for later viewing, and participants will have the opportunity to engage through online surveys and document sharing.

Once you let us know you’re interested, we will send details about how to join the online workshop or contribute at a time that works best for you. 

We welcome students, professionals, academics, and others at all career stages – your presence and participation is highly valued. Our aim is to create an inclusive and inviting experience for all to all, respecting your confidentiality and supporting a wide range of perspectives and experiences.

If you’re interested, please contact Aileen Buckley, Commission Chair, at abuckley@esri.com.