Oliver Bendel was born in Ulm on the River Danube in 1968. After completing his degree in philosophy and German philology (M.A.) as well as information science (diploma) at the University of Constance, and after his first professional experiences, he did his doctorate in information systems at the University of St. Gallen (Dr. oec.).

Oliver Bendel worked in Germany and Switzerland as a project manager and directed technical and scientific institutions, among others the Competence Center E-Learning at the University of St. Gallen, the Working Group Business Communication at the Fraunhofer Institut für Software- und Systemtechnik ISST in Dortmund and the Center for Innovation, Media and Technologies (ZIMT) at the University of Education Weingarten. In April 2009, he was appointed professor by the School of Business at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW and has been employed at the Institute for Information Systems ever since.
Oliver Bendel is an expert in the fields of e-learning, knowledge management, social media, mobile business, avatars and agents, information ethics and machine ethics. Since the year 2000, he has developed much quoted and much used e-learning definitions, and at the University of St. Gallen he founded a newsletter on the subject of e-learning in 2001, which has been in existence to the present day, and is meanwhile under the aegis of Prof. Dr. Andrea Back.

Since 1998, more than 250 specialist publications have been published, including various books and book contributions as well as articles in practitioner journals and in trade journals. Oliver Bendel is particularly interested in philosophical themes; he pleads for the integration of information ethics into (business) informatics and examines its position within the field of applied ethics. Since the turn of the millennium, his most important disciplines have become information ethics, machine ethics and robot ethics.
Oliver Bendel is or was a member of the jury for the selection of the German Internet Institute, an expert of the German Bundestag, a member of the patronage of the action "Research in a liberal minded Switzerland", a member of the Society for Informatics (GI) and a member of the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE). He regularly writes articles for the magazine Telepolis and contributions for the Wirtschaftslexikon (economic lexicon) of Springer Gabler and the Encyclopedia for Business Information Systems. As an expert, he was and still is at the disposal of various magazines and conferences, such as the Marketing Review St. Gallen (MRSG), Frontiers in Psychology, New Ideas in Psychology, Journal for E-Learning, MKWI, ECIS and HICSS.

Further information on www.informationsethik.net.

Areas of competence

• Information ethics
• Economic ethics
• Machine ethics
  • Driver assistance systems and autonomous cars (robot cars)
  • Dialog systems like chatbots and virtual assistants
  • Household, care and therapy robots
  • Private and economic drones
  • Decision trees for moral machines
• Animal-machine interaction
• Social robotics
• Industry 4.0
• E-learning
• Knowledge management
• Social media and Web 2.0

Teaching Activities

Education

• BSc Wirtschaftsinformatik: Informations- und Wissensmanagement: 2009 - 2012; Wissensmanagement und Social Medi-a: since 2013
• BSc Wirtschaftsinformatik: Innovationsmanagement: 2009 - 2013
• BSc Wirtschaftsinformatik: Informatik, Ethik und Gesellschaft: 2009 - 2013; Informationsethik: since 2014 (with units dealing with machine ethics)
• BSc Business Information Technology: Information ethics: since 2016
• BSc Betriebsökonomie: Wirtschaftsethik: since 2014 (with units dealing with machine ethics)
• BSc Betriebsökonomie: Einführung in die Wirtschaftsethik: since 2015
• BSc Betriebsökonomie: Informationsethik: since 2014 (with units dealing with machine ethics)
• BSc Betriebsökonomie: Einführung in die Wirtschaftsinformatik: since 2009
• BSc Energie- und Umwelttechnik: Vertiefung Umwelt und Management: Unternehmensethik: 2015 - 2016
• MSc BIS: Knowledge Management: since 2009 (since 2011 mentoring of student projects and bachelor/master’s theses)

Further Education

• DAS Leiter/Leiterin HR: Wissensmanagement: since 2009
• CAS Führen in NPO: Wissensmanagement: since 2010
• CAS Freiwilligenmanagement: Social Media: since 2013
• CAS Wissensmanagement in Projekten: Information Retrieval; Social Media; Informationsethik: 2009 - 2013
• MAS Ganzheitliches Management: Wissensmanagement: 2009 - 2011
• Seminar Basiswissen Social-Media-Management (head and lecturer): 2013 - 2014

Researcher at the competence center Technology, Organization & People.

Projects are the basis for successful, applied teaching. Click here to see a list Oliver Bendel’s projects. To the IRF

• Bendel, O. (2019). 350 Keywords Digitalisierung. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden, S.248, 03.10.2019
• Bendel, O. (2019). 400 Keywords Informationsethik: Grundwissen aus Computer-, Netz- und Neue-Medien-Ethik sowie Maschinenethik. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden, S.297, 03.10.2019
• Bendel, O. (2019). Handbuch Maschinenethik. Wiesbaden, S.469, 20.10.2019
• Bendel, O. (2019). Pflegeroboter aus ethischer Sicht, Blätter der Wohlfahrtspflege. Nomos, Baden-Baden, 1/2019, S.24– 27, 03.10.2019
• Bendel, O. (2018). Pflegeroboter. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler.