BN201 Professional Issues of IT
The purpose of this assignment is to develop skills in interpreting ethical, professional standards and codes of practice to ICT systems and to work collaboratively. On completion of this assignment, students will be able to:
- Interpret ethical, professional standards and codes of practice to ICT systems;
- Understand the importance of team work, collaboration and life-long learning in the workplace;
On studying these programs, she sees two areas of code which could be directly incorporated into her own program. She uses segments of code from both her coworker and the commercial software, but does not tell anyone or mention it in the documentation. She
completes the project and turns it in a day ahead of time.”
Discussion Questions
Identify the ethical issue related to this case.
Relate ACS code of professional conduct to this case? Please use the relevant clauses to highlight the professional responsibilities to Jean towards various stakeholders.
Please discuss how Max is able to fulfil his duties and also his actions can result in positive consequences for stakeholders?
How can ACS code of ethics assist Max in resolving this ethical dilemma? Relate the key ACS values that are relevant to this case.
Answer:
Introduction
The ethical dilemma occurs when any convenience that was made for benefit turns out to be a problem for the person or the organization.The ethical issue can take place in any organization. The ethical issue can be generated through ethical dilemma occurring in the organization [1]. It helps in understanding what is wrong or what is right to do in a workplace. It enhance capability of the worker for correct analysis of decision making while leaving in an organization. The ethical issues point out the loopholes that any working or business organization might lag in.
The professional IT issues helps their professionals to groom himself or herself according to the work environment, operate effectively and assess their capability in their chosen area. This report mainly focuses on the two case studies that have faced different kind of ethical issue in the past. The case study would point the issues occurred under two organizations and correlate the analysis of different kind of issues approach that can be deduced from the case study.
Ethical dilemma in this case
Jean used the source listing that was being given to Jean for reference in her work without informing the authorised personnel.
Here in this case we can identify the ethical issue in case of Jean through doing ethics technique [2] that will analyse the whole issue that is taking place in jean’s case and will help identify the ethical issue in this case.
What is going on?
The case study focuses on the database programmer Jean, whose duty is to write statistical codes for her company. The company decided to show case their algorithm in a professional journal. Since the programming was quite complex, Jean was struggling with the most of the segments of the codes. The manager of the company unaware of complexity of the problem demanded the work to be complete in few days. Jean was unsure how to solve her problems decided to take segments of codes from the source listing of her co-worker and from the software package of the early company that could fill in the lag, she was facing with her codes. She did finished her work before deadline but did not mention about it to anyone or mentioned any credits in her documentation.
What are the issues?
The issues identified in this case are using work of the colleague without prior permission[3]. Taking codes from software package of some other commercial company can fall under violating the copyright.
Who is affected?
The people affected in this case are the co-worker and the other company Jean used whose codes that in her statistical programming. If the company published those codes in their professional journal there could be a serious action taken against them. The co-worker can also complain about the situation existing in this case and there could be chances of legal procedures. The co-worker can claim for his or her codes. This could create a chaos in the organization. The members of organization may not trust each other in the same way again.
What are the options?
There must be proper authorization of codes in the organization. The organization must keep the track of the worker’s progress and work. The commercial company whose codes where pirated by Jean must have good security framework and authorised access to the software packages. There must be proper credits given in the documentation if the codes that are used in the any other project. No other segments of the codes must be used without proper permission of the senior or the worker to whom the work belongs.
What is the best option?
Authorising the code can be considered as the based option in this case. Using a high security framework would reduce the risk of piracy of the codes. There is must be proper copyright of the codes that belongs to certain organization.
ACS CODES OF ETHICS
The Australian Computer Society set up code of ethics shows the professional conduct that is to be followed in an organization to maintain a balance among the employees and the stakeholders of the companies [4]. This code of conduct provides six essential codes that falls under ACS.
BASED ON PUBLIC INTEREST
The following case that falls under this category because the organisation is the database programming company, which helps people in automated calculation, and entries and maintaining records of accomplishment of the company[5]. The database programming provides the back end support to any software data that is used to operate the computer system. The organization has decided to show their algorithm in professional journal. This step would help people to know the algorithm.
OVERALL DEVLOPMENT
The following case shows that there was many studies done by Jean. However, she was stuck in many aspects of codes. She preferred copying the codes in her work through source listing of her co-worker and some other organization. She should have given a good try or should have talk to the manager about her problem rather than copying from others.
Competence
This code of conduct suggest that there must be a clarity of work that is done in public interest, there must be an overall research and no falsification about the project that has to be proceeded with a way. There must be proper credits given to people who has contributed in the project. Here the case depicts that there was clarity of the algorithms in the journal but Jean did not define the sources she took segments of codes to complete here[6]. She should have mentioned it in her documentation about the references she took while writing her codes and she must have taken permission to use the segment of codes in the organization.
Honesty
The code of conduct states that there must be honesty will completing any project that is to be done as a part of the job[7]. In this case, any act that is to be followed in the organization should be clear with the stakeholders that has to be a part of the project. This could be seen in case of jean that she was not sure of sharing the information that she has been using the codes of someone else in her project. The company in their professional journal might publish the codes that she submitted. The codes can involve a case of plagiarism.
There must be equal credit given to the people that have shown efforts in the work or the project. In this case, Jean did not show or inform about anything to the senior that she referred and took segments of codes from the source listing of co-worker. There is no acknowledgement of the reference or the codes she took in her work.
Professional behaviour
This is highly unprofessional of the worker to take someone else’s work without notice. Jean took someone else work that can be considered highly unprofessional in this case. There was less communication between senior manager and Jean. This put her in pressure and she mislead from her professional behaviour.
Max has to work over records of the patient that her department have served in past 5 years. He has to create a report that contains all the history, time duration, lifestyle, criminal records. The work was supposed to submit as early as possible and this was creating a problem for Max. Because of the pressure, Max decided to work from home and burned a CD for completing his work. After completing his work with at most excellence, he forget his CD at home.
Ethical dilemma in this case
The case indicate the ethical dilemma when Max took option for work from home because of deadline, when he took all his documents in the CD regarding the report he needed to proceed. He completed his work but forgot the CD at home. In this case, the work from home, which could have been the benefit for Max, had turned out to be a problem because he forgot the CD at home [4].
How can he maintain the positive image?
Max should inform his senior that he has left the CD at home. This will help in building the senior’s trust over him and can find a better way of solving the problem instead of panicking. Max have to provide a prior information about leaving the CD at home and may take time to retrieve it back to the workplace. Max must have to get a proper backup of his work in his computer laptop to show that there is some progress in the work done. The proper backup will ease the pressure of work if he had to re do the work.
Consequences
The company will appreciate the consequences of his honesty[8]. If he has the back up of data this would not be a problem for retaining the data from the system. The company will consider the problem and may provide an extension to do the task or give him some time to retrieve the CD in which he created his report.
ACS code of conduct
This case can relate to ACS code of professional conduct, which can help Max to solve the problem, by the following ways:
- The honesty towards the work will help Max to maintain the transparency with the stakeholders of the company [9]. He would give realistic estimates rather than misleading the stakeholder of the organisation.
- The competence value will aid him to be aware of his potential and knowledge. He should never misrepresent any of his work and this will help to get a positive feedback [10].
- The professional behaviour demands a healthy relationship with all the stakeholders of the company, respecting each other in the company is highly important when it comes to professional behaviour. Maintaining a professional behaviour will help Max to get through the problem, which was facing in his work.
Conclusion
The report concludes with the analysis of identification of ethical dilemma that has been faced in the two case studies. The case studies are used to identify the ethical issue and finding a solution to the problem through ACS code of conduct. The report consider the information about the Australian computer society. How it have helped in solving both the cases. The report mainly finds ways of positive approach towards the problem faced by the people in the case study. It gives us idea about the DET technique for identification of ethical issues.
References
[1] Mason, Richard O. "Four ethical issues of the information age." Computer Ethics. Routledge, 2017. 41-48.
[2] Dingwall, Robert. "Professional ethics and accountability." The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society (2014): 1895-1900.
[3] LaRossa, Ralph, and Linda A. Bennett. "Ethical dilemmas in qualitative family research." The psychosocial interior of the family. Routledge, 2018. 139-156.
[4] Davies, Martin Brett, and Nathan Hughes. Doing a successful research project: Using qualitative or quantitative methods. Macmillan International Higher Education, 2014.
[5] Leicester, Nicola. "Ethics in the IT Profession: Does a Code of Ethics have an Effect on Professional Behaviour?." (2016).
[6] Partridge, Craig, and Mark Allman. "Ethical considerations in network measurement papers." Communications of the ACM59.10 (2016): 58-64.
[7] Rogerson, Simon, John Weckert, and Chris Simpson. "An ethical review of information systems development–The Australian Computer Society’s code of ethics and SSADM." Information technology & people 13.2 (2000): 121-136.
[8] Gotterbarn, Donald, and Keith W. Miller. "The Public is the Priority: Making Decisions Using the Software Engineering Code of Ethics." IEEE Computer 42.6 (2009): 66-73.
[9] Warren, Matthew, and Richard Lucas. "Ethics and ICT: Why all the fuss?." Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society 14.2 (2016): 167-169.
[10] Ferguson, Stuart, Clare Thornley, and Forbes Gibb. "Beyond codes of ethics: how library and information professionals navigate ethical dilemmas in a complex and dynamic information environment." International Journal of Information Management 36.4 (2016): 543-556.
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