Information professionals today face a growing number of intercultural information ethics challenges. This paper describes an effort to develop and evaluate educational cases that can help to prepare information professionals to overcome these challenges. A total of ten educational cases were developed and used in two semesters of an Information Ethics course taught at the University of Maryland. The new approach to case design exemplified in these cases includes having students face multiple interdependent decisions while playing culturally diverse roles. Students were asked a series of open-ended questions at the end of each semester of the course, and data were analyzed using grounded theory. The findings of this research reveal preliminary evidence supporting four key themes for preparing students to confront intercultural information ethics dilemmas: diversity, perspectives, values, and pluralism. The conclusion of this paper is that this new approach to educational case design can be successful in preparing future information professionals to confront intercultural information ethics dilemmas.

Keywords: Case-based learning, culture, globalization, information ethics education, intercultural information ethics, user-centered design, values, value-sensitive design,
grounded theory methodology.