1) According to the AIGA Guide on Standards of Professional Practice, “ A professional designer adheres to principles of integrity that demonstrate respect for the profession, for colleagues, clients, audiences or consumers, and society as a whole”. Working for OpenLab has given me great insight into Ethics in design fields. Guidelines were set from the first interview on what is expected while interning for OpenLab, workplace etiquette even when dealing with a remote internship. OpenLab’s brand alignments and what their goals are. , interns are expected to be respectful and professional during virtual meetings, open and honest about /work done, and critiques.
1a) Once we started creating draft posts that will be displayed on OpenLab we immediately had a meeting agenda about sourcing and citing images used. They gave us links to multiple resources where you can find fair use and noncopyrighted images such as Creative Commons, which also provides information such as authors’ names, origin links, and any information needed to cite your image sources properly. This shows that OpenLab and their team are ethical, and have integrity, by making sure to give all interns the proper instructions on sourcing and making sure they are taking the proper steps to cite the correct information.
When citing on the OpenLab platform you may use the new “attributes’ feature that provides you space to fill out important citing information, such as Title of work if any, author, copyrighted, year created, if it’s free-use; for edits/ alterations and source links, that show up on the bottom of the published page. An intern working for OpenLab can use any Logos, themes, or color schemes associated with OL when creating posts with the approval of Supervisors/ directors. Utilizing brand associations is commonly accepted as long as the user takes ethical steps when using things associated with the company, promoting ideas, and sending messages aligned with the company, brand, organization, and audience’s values.
1b) We did not have to sign a confidentiality agreement or NDA, I understood that we could openly talk about our internship in a way that promotes the company. When talking about OL amongst students and faculty it’s implied that you should always be respectful, and mindful of what you’re discussing and how you represent the company. OpenLab supervisors know we have to write a blog about our internships and encourage us to utilize all resources when using the OpenLab system to publish the blog.
