Ethical issues arising from use of ICT technologies

Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping) This assignment assesses the following Unit Learning Outcomes; students should be able to demonstrate their achievements in them.

Analyse ethical, professional standards and codes of practice in relation to ICT systems;
Understand the importance of team work, collaboration and life-long learning in the workplace.

Assignment Description

Students should form a group of five (5) students from the same laboratory class. You must not change the group membership unless approved by your tutor. Tutor will then allocate one of the topics listed in Table 1 to each group.

All students must collaborate in this group assignment and contribute equally. Group leader should report their progress on a weekly basis to relevant tutor. Every student must participate in peer assessment on the Spark- Plus system.

Table 1: List of topics for Assignment-2.

Topic 1: Jean, a statistical database programmer, is trying to write a large statistical program needed by her company. Programmers in this company are encouraged to write about their work and to publish their algorithms in professional journals. After months of tedious programming, Jean has found herself stuck on several parts of the program. Her manager, not recognising the complexity of the problem, wants the job completed within the next few days. Not knowing how to solve the problems, Jean remembers that a co-worker had given her source listings from his current work and from an early version of a commercial software package developed at another company. 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 co-worker 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.

Investigate and report on the ethical issues raised in this case.

Topic 2: Three years ago Diane started her own consulting business. She has been so successful that she now has several people working for her and many clients. Their consulting work included advising on how to set up corporate intranets, designing database management systems, and advising about security.

Presently she is designing a database management system for the personnel office of a medium- sized company. Diane has involved the client in the design process, informing the CEO, the director of computing, and the director of personnel about the progress of the system. It is now time to make decisions about the kind and degree of security to build into the system. Diane has described several options to the client. Because the system is going to cost more than they planned, the client has decided to opt for a less secure system. She believes the information they will be storing is extremely sensitive. It will include performance evaluations, medical records for filing insurance claims, salaries, and so forth.

With weak security, employees working on client machines may be able to figure out ways to get access to this data, not to mention the possibility of on-line access from hackers. Diane feels strongly that the system should be much more secure. She has tried to explain the risks, but the CEO, director of computing and director of personnel all agree that less security will do.

What should she do? Should she refuse to build the system as they request?

Topic 3: Max works in a large state department of alcoholism and drug abuse. The agency administers programs for individuals with alcohol and drug problems, and maintains a huge database of information on the clients who use their services. Some of the data files contain the names and current addresses of clients.

Max has been asked to take a look at the track records of the treatment programs. He is to put together a report that contains the number of clients seen in each program each month for the past five years, length of each client's treatment, number of clients who return after completion of a program, criminal histories of clients, and so on. In order to put together this report, Max has been given access to all files in the agency's mainframe computer. After assembling the data into a file that includes the clients' names, he downloads it to the computer in his office.

Under pressure to get the report finished by the deadline, Max decides he will have to work at home over the weekend in order to finish on time. He burns the information onto a CD and takes it home. After finishing the report he leaves the CD at home and forgets about it.

Investigate and report on the ethical issues raised in this case.

Topic 4: A computer company is writing the first stage of a more efficient accounting system that will be used by the government. This system will save tax payers a considerable amount of money every year. A computer professional, who is asked to design the accounting system, assigns different parts of the system to her staff. One person is responsible for developing the reports; another is responsible for the internal processing; and a third for the user interface. The manager is shown the system and agrees that it can do everything in the requirements. The system is installed, but the staff finds the interface so difficult to use that their complaints are heard by upper level management. Because of these complaints, upper-level management will not invest any more money in the development of the new accounting system and they go back to their original, more expensive system.

Investigate and report on the ethical issues raised in this case.

Topic 5: A software development company has just produced a new software package that incorporates the new tax laws and figures taxes for both individuals and small businesses. The president of the company knows that the program has a number of bugs. He also believes the first firm to put this kind of software on the market is likely to capture the largest market share. The company widely advertises the program. When the company actually ships a CD, it includes a disclaimer of responsibility for errors resulting from the use of the program. The company expects it will receive a number of complaints, queries, and suggestions for modification. The company plans to use these to make changes and eventually issue updated, improved, and debugged versions. The president argues that this is general industry policy and that anyone who buys version 1.0 of a program knows this and will take proper precautions. Because of bugs, a number of users filed incorrect tax returns and were penalised by the Australian Tax Office (ATO).

Investigate and report on the ethical issues raised in this case.

Note: Need only Topic - 4