Social And Professional Issues: October 2011

The importance of Ethics among the IT professionals

Section 1 Group 5

Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

In work environment, ethics is the common rules or approach for all professionals need to obey in order to achieve a great environment in an organization. Most of people think that ethics and morals is something that share the same meaning but actually they are not. The morals are towards the personal character, while ethics stress a social system in which those morals are applied. In other words, ethics point to standards or codes of behavior expected by the group to which the individual belongs. The ethics might be national ethics, social ethics, company ethics, professional ethics, or even family ethics. So while a person’s moral code is usually unchanging, the ethics of he or she practices can be others to depend on.

This paper is written based on data collection from many sources such as webs, articles, and books. So, this paper will provide an overview on the importance of ethics among the IT professionals. Furthermore, it will be explaining the beneficial of applying ethics to IT professionals in order to achieve a good relationship among the workers or team members in an organization.

Keywords: Importance of ethics, Ethics, Morals, IT professionals

Introduction

According to Velasquez (2010),Ethics can be divided into two things,firstly,it refers to well founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what human tend to do usually in terms of rights,benefits to society or specific virtues.Secondly,it refers to the study and development of one’s ethical standard.Stoodley (2009) state that ethics has been defined in terms of agent.Thus,the agent’s actions or processes have formed the starting point for ethical frameworks.

The concept of Professional Ethics is partly comprised of what a professional should or should not do in the work place (McLarty,2007).Worthington (2008) state that Professional ethical issues can occur in developing any information technology system.The internet and web allow many people around the world to quickly connect to an IT system.As a result,Worthington state that professionals are more likely to confront ethical issues when dealing with the internet and world wide web.Professionals may be called to account for their actions not only in their own country,but in any jurisdiction in the world.

Many professional organization are guided by ethical or professional codes.Professional code serve as the framework for professional conduct and provide guidelines in the ethical decision making process.According to Jefferson (n.d), ethicals and professional codes are not meant to replace law or morality but to serve as guidelines for professional conduct.

It is crucial that professional included IT professional recognize the importance of ethics and guideline that govern the professional organizations.Jefferson (n.d) state that the guideline is important as it provide the ethical principles that will assist them in the many of the professional decisions they will make.Ethics are not just how we feel about something,it is a reasoned process.It may become habitual or intuitive once we have a set of value to apply consistently (Iacovino,2002).

Importance of Ethics among the IT professionals.

The important of ethics among professional focus on computer professional feel responsible for ensuring that computer technology is not used in ways that harm people, the environment, or society. Based on this important, every IT professional want to be an employee that works for an organization that is fair, honest and ethical in its practices. Researchers have shown that employee that works comfortably without to face any mistreatment by the fellow employees or by the organization itself tends to contribute better for the organization.

Another important thing of ethics among the professional is about access data. According to Gordana (2003), computer professional only access data required to perform their job. They only access data that they want to complete their task beside to access another data that not required to complete their own task. Other than that, they use the right time to complete their task. The task must be done properly considering all factors such as the quality of the data that they access. Improper ethics education can cause professionals to do the task without concentrate, not concern at all whether the task done is complete or not.

The other important is the procedure of IT process will keep in secret. This is because IT professional only participate in development task, the objective and context of which have been made explicitly (Dahlbom and Mathiassen, 1999). This is very important for big organization in other to survive in the industry. There have their own strategy or benchmark that is key success to their business.

Another important of ethics among the professional are the professional will more responsible and punctual in complete the project or the task given with allocated resources. This is because computer professional only take part in project with the time and resources assigned that make it possible to deliver a good job (Dahlbom and Mathiassen, 1999).

Furthermore, living in this era of Information Technology’s, computer crime is one of the problems that might attack an organization. Viruses and hackers are getting widespread over the years. Therefore, Bynum (2001) stated that logical security can be divided in five aspects that is privacy and confidentiality, integrity by assuring data and programs are not modified without proper authority, unimpaired service, consistency by ensuring that the data and behavior being see today is same as tomorrow, and lastly, controlling access to resources. Nowadays, there are many malicious kids of software that being used in order to access to certain system without authorization. For example, viruses, worms, Trojan horses, logic bombs and also bacteria or rabbits which could harm the computer system of an organization. So, this is an unethical action that could be penalized due to unauthorized access and breaking company system. Therefore, the IT professionals should concerns on the ethics been applied in Information Technology and Computer Science in order to achieve a great environment among the IT’s industries at the same time improving individual performance.

Beside that the importance of ethics among the IT professional will increase the culture of respect among the professional. This respect come from the cooperation between the the team members in contribute to the development of the project and the professional capabilities of users, meaning that developers understand what users needs.

Other than that, the importance ethics among the IT professional will leads to customer satisfaction. Computer professionals develop systems that use technology such way as to satisfy the interest of the users, in addition computer develop systems that bring about good work environments.

Benefits of Applying ethics to IT professional

Information technology and computer professionals began to think seriously by considering the long-term effects of computer ethics. They recognized the need to organize professional bodies such as the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to produce professional codes of conduct. However, the rapid growth of powerful computers in the hands of nonprofessionals widens the scope of potential problems.

According to Joseph (2010),The list of potential benefits linked to an effective ethics program includes the recruiting and retaining people of high quality. Other benefit is to promote the work environment to be more satisfying and productive. This will also build and maintain the reputation in the community association in which you are operating. Moreover, ethics will maintain the trust to ensure continued self-regulation and will confirm the open discussion of ethics issues.Benefit of ethics will also provide guidance and sources of ethics for employees before making difficult decisions. Other than that, it will align the efforts of staff with a broader mission and vision of the association.

Conclusion

At the end of this paper, readers completely understand the importance of Ethics among the IT professionals. No doubt, ethics is a set of principle that not only focused and been applied on the IT professionals but also towards all the workers in any industries or departments. By applying the ethics among IT professionals, it will assist to achieve the great environment within an organization with a good individual performance and ethics. Furthermore, applying ethics approaches could determine the right or wrong of an individual action. According to Catherine Rainbow (2002), there are several approaches or theories that being used in an organization especially IT professions in order to determine the action such as Kantianism and utilitarianism. Guthrie (2002) also stated that ethical theories can be classified into several terms that are utilitarianism, ethical relativism, and also deontological theories. Each approach has its own functions in order to determine the action but depends on situation that is currently been discussed. So that, with the ethics theories, most of IT professionals might not be penalized due to unethical action. The unethical action can be as plagiarism, disturbing people privacy, unauthorized access, hacking and others. Furthermore, in IT professions, they need to concerns on the code of ethics in order to improve the performance individually and at the same time improving the company itself. For example, according to SANS San Antonio (2004), the IT professionals must strive for technical excellence in the IT profession by maintaining and enhancing their own knowledge and skills. This code of ethics is build to ensure that the IT professionals will strive for the best performance with high credibility, responsibility, and maturity to handle the tasks in Information Technology’s.

References

1. Bynum (2001), Computer and Information Ethics. Retrieved October 31, 2011 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-computer/#ComCri

2. Dahlbom and Mathiassen (1999), professional code of ethics. Retrieved October 24, 2011 from http://www.larsmathiassen.org/20.pdf

3. Guthrie (2002), Computer Ethics. Retrieved October 30, 2011 from

http://courses.cs.vt.edu/cs3604/lib/Ethics/notes.html

4. Gordana (2003), On the Importance of Teaching Professional Ethics to Computer Science Students. Retrieved October 24, 2011 from http://www.idt.mdh.se/~gdc/work/TeachingProfEthics.pdf

5. Iacovino (2002),Ethical Principles and Information Professionals : Theory,Practice and Education.Retrieved 26 October,2011 from http://www.alia.org.au/publishing/aarl/33.2/full.text/iacovino.html

6. Joseph (2000),Ethics in the Workplace.Retrieved 28 October,2011 from http://www.asaecenter.org/Resources/articledetail.cfm?ItemNumber=13073

7. Jefferson (n.d),Ethical Perspectives of Library and information science graduate students in the United States.Retrieved 26 October,2011 from http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/emerald-publishing/ethical-perspectives-of-library-and-information-science-graduate-SV75AfRokp

8. McLarthy (2007),Professional Ethics.Retrieved 25 October,2011 from http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Professional_Ethics

9. Rainbow (2002), Description of Ethical Theories and Principles. Retrieved October 30, 2011 at http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/kabernd/indep/carainbow/Theories.htm

10. SANS San Antonio (2004), IT Code of Ethics. Retrieved October 30, 2011 from http://www.sans.org/security-resources/ethics.php

11. Stoodley (2009),IT Professionals experience of ethics and its implications for IT education.Retrieved 27 October,2011 from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/26105/1/Ian_Stoodley_Thesis.pdf

12. Velasquez (2010),What is Ethics.Retrieved 27 October,2011 from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/whatisethics.html

13. Worthington (2008),Ethics for ICT Professionals.Retrieved 27 October,2011 from http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/ictethics.shtml