Imat5262 Ethics In Computing: Impacts Assessment Answers

Develop the professional ethics at workplaces. Highlight the impacts of security failures, unprofessional and unethical approach  of the professionals as well the general public on the intellectual work of an Individual as well Organization.

We are living in the digital age, all the data’s and information are kept digital and with the development of advance communication system, the accessibility of information has become global in a very short span of time. With the facility and convenience at work places this form of information has also raised a very serious issue for the Ethics in Intellectual rights of an individual or an organization. The most serious matter of ethics is about the data that is uploaded on the internet. An Individual puts a lot of effort and hard work in developing the digital work either it be Technical work such as codes for the software , technical artefacts, Literary work such as books, Research paper and Training material, Images, Legal documents, Organization’s Documents and other work. It is ethical to be made aware the owner about the copy, alterations, downloads and other inputs in their work. With this the uninformed access also arises the risks of misuse of  the data .

The Computer Ethics or Information ethics was developed by the Norbert Weiner , the professor at MIT along with his colleagues at America and Great Britain. They developed a new branch in computing known as Cybernetics. He in his book “Cybernetics “ ( 1948) has elaborated  various topics including Cyber Ethics along with the computer and security, computer and unemployment, computer and professionalism and several other topics still significant in digital Information system

 The professionals who develop their intellectual work for the analysis, research, design, development , specification, certification and maintenance have a significant social impact.  In Information Technology  it is required to develop the professional ethics at workplaces , the code of conduct is very well required in this area.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the impacts of security failures, unprofessional and unethical approach  of the professionals as well the general public on the intellectual work of an Individual as well Organization.  It will also present the techniques and practices available for providing the assistance in this area and the limitation of present techniques also. With this it will also present the scope of research in this topic. The main aim of this paper is to present the proposal for research in this field.

Research questions

• Are employees aware of the ethical rights of the Intellectual work.
• Are professionals using the techniques available for security and permission of Intellectual work.
• What are the concern of Individuals as well organization in this respect.
• What practices the organization are following at work place.
• What are techniques available  for maintaining the intellectual rights.
• What are limitations of current techniques available for this concern.
• What practices  is required to introduce at the workplace to practice the code of conduct for Intellectual rights.

Literature Review

Overview of Intellectual property rights at the work places

The Intellectual work or property refers to the own brain work done by the Individual or an Organization, their document and other papers. The intellectual property ethics refers to the practices consisting of legal rights too for restricting the uses of the created data with the help of copyright notices, software’s , trade , patents and other techniques.

 The most serious concern in this domain is that we are living in the Internet age , through internet it takes very short time for circulating the information globally. Along with the data restricted for work place it is also required to have intellectual right policies for the data available free for learning as well community services.

A major issue in the area of Intellectual rights in the digital work are also connected with the software ownership too. Along with software’s other work such as digital content of the book, organization documents, images, information related to certain person, place or organization and several other work too.

 In the study of the Intellectual  property  rights at the work places the key issues are as follows-

• First concern in this study is about the ownership and use of the computer software’s, it’s not only about present but also about the future use of the software too.
• Second concern is about the implementation of the legal protection practices and the coherence of these practices at each sections that put impact and are effected.
• The credibility of granting the permission to the individual , particular organization and technology.
• Next concern is about the social impact of the violation of these ethics, the impact on user regimes and the software practices.
• The credibility of the alternative  to the proprietary software’s, the open source and free software’s.
• The implementation of the legal laws and practices.

Engineering Ethics and Research

The implementation of  Engineering and research practices  rely on both engineering and ethical principles.  In order to make engineering and research ethical it is suggested to introduce the professionalism ethics as a compulsory part in the training  and course curriculum. There are several university considering this matter has already introduced in their course.  Some example are now included in theComputer Science, Software Engineering and Inter-active Computing Curriculum at Mälardalen Uni-versity (MdH), (Dodig-Crnkovic 2005) too”.

There is no section where there is no risk of unauthorised use is not there but it is required to introduce the ethical study for it. It is very important to study in depth the impact and ways of violations to control these activities. Not only theoretical but also practical implementation of serious ethical methods should be implemented.

 Computing Ethics

The ethics in computing refers to the analysis of the nature and impact on the social level of the software’s , either software packages or the software’s used for storing this digital information, the technology and the justification provided by the formulation polices for the implementation of the ethical  principles. The problem in ethical principle arises due to differences in the judgement and practices to the expected results. In order to develop the effective ethical policies a deep research with considering the technical, social, legal, economical and the impacts in future should be designed.

 Along with long term considerations at  the level of work place its necessary that the employee at the work place could able to develop the rationale about the moral dilemma of practicing the particular activity or not. The most important factor in this concern is about the fixed or constant principles. Several questions also arise in this domain such as does copying the data is termed as stealing , the digital crimes are not same as human crimes , does viewing  the information stored in individual computer is  crime and attacking in the privacy of the individual’s right.

Software Intellectual property

The Software have a great impact on the ethical practicing of the computer or digital work. According to the properties of the Software the software is broadly divided into two categories – the first category is  Proprietary software and second category is  the FLOSS software which is further categorized into the Free software , second it is Libre and third one is Open Software.

1. Proprietary Software

The proprietary Software’s are those software’s which are restricted for  private company through their ownership, its software is protected by the legal privacy laws and regimes. Here the main focus is the security of the source code of the software as it is the code that makes the software valuable and has capability to transform the features and functionalities of the software. In order to restrict the violation certain End User Licence are created.

1. Floss  Software

The  Floss software’s are those software’s that provide the open or free access to the code of their software. In this category the Software’s come are as follows-

Free Software

According to the European council of Information Technology the characteristics of the free software’s are as follows-

• The users can use the software according to their desired requirements.
• The users can remove bugs , can change format and add new features in the software’s.
• Can redistribute the software to other users, the royalty is required to be submitted.

Open Source Software

• It does not impose royalty on redistribution of the software.
• The source code is available.
• The user can bring modifications.
• For redistribution the modification in the software is required.
• The software is available at the open source Licence.
• It allows to earn revenue on redistribution.

Types of Intellectual rights techniques and tools

For the software’s following practices are followed –

• The owner can own the source code of the software.
• The owner can own the object code of the software which is required for machine translation.
• The owner can own the algorithm of the software.
• The look and feel feature right can be restricted.

Copy Right protection and Restriction

Through this technique the  making the copy of the data or software without the consent of the owner of the data or software is made legally prohibited. The users can view data but cannot use them for their personal use. According the USA IT council the Copy right protection and restriction can be defined as follows-

 The copyright policy is not enough powerful to protect an idea, method, task, system , the operation method, view, principle , discovery and creation. It can be proclaimed that the functions and method of any programming language such as java can be different in each programs.

Patent protection

In this method like copy right protection  the  making the copy of the data or software without the consent of the owner of the data or software is made legally prohibited. In case of use or violation of the patent protection act the violator will be required to pay the violation fine to the owner.

Methodology Review

In order to answer the research questions a well defined methodology is required to be developed. A good methodology play a pivotal role in the success of the research. To develop the methodology the different types of qualitative as well quantitative technique are used (Berndtsson et al., 2008) consisting questionnaires (Dawson, 2009), interviews, and surveys (Yi et al., 2009). Each and every approach has its own features and usability.

Interviews

Interviews are the common and most useful method to design the methodology for the research, it helps in gaining the real life observation through practical opinion of the users. With the help of Interviews the researcher can gain in depth information about the topic by asking the open ended and detailed questions to the participants. The method of conducting Interviews can be categorised into the three types , the first type is structured Interview, semi structured and unstructured Interview type.  (Oates, 2006).

Though Interview is the best method for gaining information but in several cases it creates the confusion and somehow this is very time consuming also.

• Questionnaires

Designing the questionnaire comes under the quantitate research method and it is useful method for collecting the opinion of several peoples in a short time. In this method the pattern of questions are pre-decided mostly they are open questions and simple to answer.   (Dawson, 2009). This method helps the researcher to ask the questions to the participants without confusion in open answering method, it is less time consuming and in very small time opinion of many participant can be gained. It can be done even on not availability of the researcher at the time of response too.

• Surveys

The survey is also  a major quantitate research method to collect the opinion of huge group. In this method the same questions are asked to large group of people , according to their response statistical analysis is done. This is most widely used method in several fields. These Questions can be asked through internet with the help of mails or polls and directly the opinion can analysed.

The main advantage of this technique is that in the short span of time the response of the or participants can be achieved and maximum response can be gained and analysed.

• Focus Groups

This method is also widely used, as the name the main concentration is to focus on the opinion to the majority of people. Here like an interview instead of taking interview of single person the interview is conducted of the group. And accordingly result is determined. The main advantage of this method it enables to interview the complete group rather than individual and can collectively put the opinion.

• Case Studies

The case studies are also the best method for gaining the information detail of the research topic. By studying the case studies one can gain the opinion of other expert and well accomplished researchers. The case study can be conducted in several categories and in different ways.

• Chosen Methodologies
  • Interview

This method is selected because it will help in gaining the practical opinion and to gain the vast detail about the research topic. Most importantly our selected topic Intellectual property rights require active participation of the employees and other people as it will help to determine the effectiveness of the ethical principles and techniques. It will also give us the facility to get the information in the natural environment so that better analysis can be performed. It will provide direct communication with the participant and will help in gaining the other required information too. Will also take consideration to related areas that are not considered before doing interview.

• Survey

A survey is also the method selected for conducting the research. The survey will help to get the information from several peoples in less time and the information gained will be more trusted and analytical. The information can be analysed through various statistical techniques and approaches for better understanding. The survey can be done through emails and other techniques easily.

Conclusion

The problem of Ethics and professionalism in Intellectual rights of an Individual is the biggest issue in the Research, Ethics, and Professionalism in Computing. The most serious matter of ethics is about the data that is uploaded on the internet. An Individual puts a lot of effort and hard work in developing the digital work either it be Technical work such as codes for the software , technical artefacts, Literary work such as books, Research paper and Training material, Images, Legal documents, Organization’s Documents and other work. It is ethical to be made aware the owner about the copy, alterations, downloads and other inputs in their work. With this the uninformed access also arises the risks of misuse of the data. It is a wider field of research and study. If I will be given the opportunity to perform the research, I will give my best effort in this area.

Project Plan

For the project plan please view the details given in the Appendix A.  Here the information for project planning is given through Gantt chart. Here each activity proposed to be performed is given in detail with logical breakdown of the tasks.

Ethical Issues

The ethical issues to be consider are given in the Appendix B.in this procedure to achieve the ethical prespective the human participant are involved.

Consent Form

The consent form is used to present the consent or approval of the participant for conducting the interview and survey.

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